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PEOGEESS 



CITY OF NEW-YORK, 

During tjie jCnst /iftq ftm; 



NOTICES OF THE PRINCIPAL CHANGES 
AND IMPORTANT EVENTS. 



A LECTURE 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE MECHANICS' SOCIETY AT MECHANICS' 
HALL, BROADWAY, 



ON 29th DECEMBER, 1851. 



BY 



CHARLES KING, L.L. D., 

PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 




NEW-YORK: 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. 

1852. 



-'-" ■ Wy- VNiv^ 






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PREFACE 



Makt applications liaving been made to me for 
copies of this address — and some interest liaving 
been expressed tliat it sliould be put into a more 
convenient and permanent form than that of a 
newspaper — I determined to reprint it from the 
Tribune where it ajDpeared, and have taken the 
opportunity thus presented of adding some pas- 
sages and notes prepared since the lecture was 
delivered, without omitting any that were then 
given. 

It is a theme upon which, with more time, 
much more might be said — but such as it is, this 
memorial of New- York may have interest at least 
for its own residents. 

C.K. 

March 2, 1852. 



LECTURE. 



The subject to which I wish to ask your attention this 
evening, is The City of Neiv- York, and its progress dur- 
ing the last fifty years. Born myself in this City, and 
identified with it through all that period, by|interest, asso- 
ciation and affection, I very cheerfully acceded to the sug- 
gestion made to me by the Committee at whose instance I 
am here, to take New- York for the topic of my lecture. 

You will readily apprehend that the difficulty in treat- 
ing this topic lies not in the scantiness but in the supera- 
bundance of materials ; and, with all my efforts to avoid 
what would be inevitable — if any thing like a detailed enu- 
meration were attempted of the manifold proofs and illus- 
trations of the City's growth and progress — the dryness and 
formality of a mere journal or record, I yet fear that I may 
fail to interest my hearers in what, nevertheless, is a most 
interesting theme. Without further preface, I enter at once 
upon it. 

It is now 237 years since the passengers of a Dutch 
emigrant vessel landed on the point of the Battery, and 
laid the foundation of this proud and populous City. On 
its struggles, its vicissitudes and its triumphs, from that 
period to the commencement of the present Century, this is 
not the place nor the occasion to enlarge. 



6 

Passing at once to the year 1801, we find that feeble 
Dutch settlement already a goodly City, numbering about 
61,000 people ; and then entering fully upon tlie career 
of commercial greatness, which — favored by the wise na- 
tional policy of Washington, and stimulated by the enter- 
prise of intelligent freemen, whose own strong arms had, 
under the favor of Heaven, achieved the independence of 
their country — has gone on increasing, and to increase, so 
long as the descendants of those freemen shall be true to 
the character of their fathers, and to the glorious institu- 
tions bequeathed to us, their successors. 

In this City had assembled the first Congress under the 
Constitution. In its ancient City Hall — then standing 
where the Custom-House now stands, at the head of Broad 
street — the Constitution had been accepted and sworn to 
by George Washington, the first President under it ; and 
here the new Government was organized and set in motion. 
At the close of the second session of the First Congress, 
in December, 1790, the seat of Government was transferred 
to Philadelphia; and New- York, happily for her interests, 
was left to her own resources, and to the commercial pur- 
suits especially for which her natural position and advan- 
tages are so great, without the frail and perilous depend- 
ence upon the too often corrupting patronage and expendi- 
tures of a Seat of Government. 

Tlie city in ISOl numbered seven Wards. Edward 
Livingston, since so renowned as a jurist and a statesman, 
was then the Mayor.vJ3roadway, as a street, at that time 
terminated at Catiiarine street, now called Anthony street; 
and beyond was a hill-country, sloping on the one side to 
the fresh- water pond, or the Kolck, on the cast, and to the 
lowlands of Lispenard's Meadows on the west. The limit 
of habitations, or streets in which there were buildings, 
was, on the North River, Harrison street ; on the East 
River, Rutgers street ; with very large spaces between, 
on which were no dwellings. The houses on Bowerie 



Lane — as was the early designation of tliat wide and noble 
avenue — furthest out of town, were near Bullock street, 
now Broome street ; and on either side of these houses was 
an open space to each river of cultivated grounds and 
orchards. 

The outside street on the west side of the town was » 
Greenwich street from the Battery up to Cedar street.^ 
There the encroachments upon the river had snatched from 
the waters, in the true spirit of our Dutch ancestors, the 
commencement of another street, now Washington street, 
and it extended, only partially built up on one side, to 
Harrison street, where the waves still broke upon the natu- 
ral breach. 

In Greenwich street, on the west side, near Morris 
street, stood, in 1803 and long after, a circular building, 
which had been used as a Circus by Rickett's Company ; 
and but few houses existed on the west side of the street, 
between the Battery and Rector street. The water came 
up to the street, and boys bathed there. Greenwich street, 
from the Battery to Courtlandt street, was paved for the 
first time in May, 1802. In the fall of 1801, as late as Oc- 
tober, the Yellow Fever reappeared in the City, but it last- 
ed only about a fortnight. 

A respected friend, then and now a resident of New- 
York, has furnished me with some very interesting recol- 
lections as to this early period, which (being then abroad 
with my father, who was Minister at the Court of England) 
I cannot speak about from personal knowledge. " In win- 
ter, we resided," said he, "at the time, 1802, at No. 125 
Pearl street, formerly occupied by the Bank of New- York, 
and at Judge Lawrence's house during the summer. This 
summer-house stood on the line of Division street, and on 
the block now facing Grand street between Willet and Pitt 
streets. Col. Willet's country-seat— that house yet stands 
— laid a little to the northeast : and Wm. Laight's, on the 
bank of the East River, was directly in front of us — a lux- 



8 

uriant growth of clover flourishing in his back lot. From 
this residence I became familiar with Broadway above An- 
thony street. It was then called the Middle Road. At 
Anthony street rose a hill, on the top of which, on the west 
side, was a two-story frame house with brick front, which, 
with a basement afterward built under it, was pulled down 
only last year. On the east side, a two-story house, occu- 
pied in summer by Col. Barclay as a country-seat. This 
house, with stories and cellar built under, is that occupied 
by Cornelius W. Lawrence, Esq., during his Mayoralty, 
and still stands, next, I believe, to the Carlton House in 
Broadway. Beyond these houses was a steep descent to a 
stone bridge of one arch, over the outlet of the Kolck, at 
Canal street. North of the bridge was a sharp, high hill ; 
and thence the ground fell rapidly to the middle of the 
space between Broome and Spring streets, where was a 
pond, through which the Middle Road was filled up and 
prolonged. On the east side thereof, was a high bank, 
studded with apple trees. Eastward from this, stood Bay- 
ard's house and garden, occupied by Delacroix, as Vaux- 
hall Garden, far below the site of the present Vauxhall. 
On the west side of the Middle Road, above what is now 
Bleecker street, John J. Astor had a country residence ; 
and beyond him again, Wm. Neilson." These, I may say, 
were yet country residences till after the close of the War 
of 1812. /At the earlier period of 1801, a pale-fence stretched 
across Broadway on the Middle Road, at about Astor Place 
— there beginning the farm of Randall, which constitutes, 
by a most noble bequest, the endowment of the Sailors' 
Snug Harbor. 

Many who h^ar me will remember the sandy hill, which 
intercepted the line of Broadway, upon which stood the 
mansion-house of Capt. Randall, long occupied by a re- 
spectable citizen, James Farquhar, a fine old-fashioned gen- 
tleman, who formed the taste of so many young gentlemen 
of his day to wine and dancing, for he was a standing 



manager of the assemblies, and a seller of wine yet nota- 
ble. It was not till many years later, that Broadway was 
cut through this sandy hill and the garden of Mr. Brevoort, 
which laid beyond it ; and where now stretch away, in 
endless lines, elegant houses and noble squares, and paved 
and gas-lighted streets, the cows grazed, and the industrious 
gardener planted his cabbages. To the growth of the City 
and the necessities of that growth, no obstacle has been 
found insuperable. The face of the earth, uneven and 
rocky, has been levelled to a gently sloping plain. Streets 
have been prolonged, straightened, widened, and sometimes 
cut out anew, regardless of expense, and regardless, too, of 
old associations and cherished attachments. Graveyards, 
those populous cities of the dead, have not been sacred from 
the hand of Improvement or the foot of Progress ; and 
churches, erected as the Romans planted trees, " for pos- 
terity and the immortal gods," have been overturned, or, 
like our present Post-Office, given up to secular uses. In 
respect to the churches, it will surprise probably even those 
who have been observing lookers on, to learn how many 
have risen and disappeared, or been perverted from their 
purpose, within the last half-century. To begin with the 
instance just referred to, the Post-Office : The Middle 
Dutch Church was one of the oldest and best endowed 
churches in this City, and in its graveyard, and the vaults 
around the edifice, reposed many of the descendants of the 
first inhabitants. When the building was turned over to 
secular uses, these remains were again made " to revisit 
the pale glimpses of the moon," and were transferred to 
newer resting-places, whether to be more permanent, the 
future must decide. The oldest Dutch Church, that which 
stood in Garden street, of which even the name, and al- 
most the memory, have already disappeared, was demol- 
ished within the last thirty years, to make a place for ware- 
houses and banks. In Cedar street, near the junction of 
William street, was built, about 1808-9, a fine and spa- 



10 

cious church edifice for Rev. John B. Romeyn, a clergyman 
of much reputation for eloquence and piety at that day, 
and who had drawn around him a congregation of wealthy 
and respectable people. It was a colony, so to speak, from 
the old Wall street Church, and the animated sale of its 
pews at rates very high — the first occurrence of the kind 
upon a large scale — both attested the favor in which the 
preacher was held and put him in possession of a church 
free of debt — an inestimable advantage for clergymen and 
churches, not less than for men of other vocations aiid for 
public institutions of secular aims. But the Cedar street 
Church and its Wall street parent have both disappeared ; 
the former totally, and without leaving a sign — the latter, 
after being rebuilt and enlarged, was, about fifteen years 
ago, taken down and transported, piece-meal, and now 
stands, stone for stone, across the Hudson, in Jersey City, 
still a temple to the living God. The graveyard around 
the Wall street Church Avas broken up, its vaults emptied 
of their unconscious dead — happily unconscious, or they 
might well, in the imprecation of the Bard, have ex- 
claimed — 

" Leave us, oh ! leave us to repose, 
Nor further seek our merits to disclose, 
Nor draw our frailties from their dread abode ; 
(There they alike in trembling Hope repose,) 
The bosom of our Father and our God." 

And now we find there the offices of California Express- 
es and Lightning Telegraphs — as little dreamed of by those 
upon whose graves they stand, as that those graves them- 
selves would ever yield up their dead but at the last great 
summons. Older even than these, was the first Jewish Syna- 
ofosue of Sheareth Israel, which stood a little retired from 
Mill street, between Broad and William streets. It has 
vanished, and so has the street, too. About the year 1803, 
Trinity Church commenced the building of a Chapel in 



11 

what was then most emphatically the very uppermost part 
of the City, now known as Hudson Square. The building 
(St, John's) was not finished till 1807. Perhaps no more 
striking illustration of the change in the aspect or physiog- 
nomy of the City, and in the value of its soil, can be ad- 
duced, than by a quotation from the very interesting his- 
torical work on Trinity Church, by the present estimable 
Rector, Rev. Dr. Berrian, Referring to the site of St. John's 
Church, he says : " This was on the very verge of a place 
as unsuitable as possible for a substantial edifice. It was 
probably in view of this difficulty that the Vestry made an 
order in the following year (1804), that the Committee of 
Leases should have the pond filled up on the east side of 
Lispenard's garden, which was in the immediate neighbor- 
hood of the situation proposed for St. John's Church. In- 
deed, it would be almost incredible to persons of the present 
generation to hear, from those who are older, their recollec- 
tions of the past in regard to this quarter of the City. It 
was a wild and marshy spot of no inconsiderable extent, 
surrounded with bushes and bulrushes ; in winter a favor- 
ite place for skaters, and at certain seasons for gunners ; 
and where, in my boyhood, I have seen snakes that were 
killed on its borders. Indeed, even in 1808 it was only so 
partially filled up and reclaimed by the elevation of the 
grounds for the courses of the streets, and the consequent 
multiplication of ponds in various directions, as to have 
been the occasion at night of many a sad disaster." 

As to the change in value of this property, the reverend 
author adds : "A curious anecdote was related to me by 
an old and respectable parishioner of Trinity Church (the 
late David Lydig), that an uncle of his (David Grim), who 
was a Trustee of one of the Lutheran churches in this City, 
and who was fond of antiquarian research, in looking over 
the former minutes of the Board, found an entry to the 
effect that some well-disposed individual had oifeied to 
the Trustees of the Church a present of a plot of ground, 



12 

containing about six acres, near to the head of Canal street 
and Broadway. They passed a resolution, however, that 
it was inexpedient to accept the gift, inasmuch as the land 
was not worth the fencing in." 

Although considerably antecedent in time, I may intro- 
duce here a yet earlier illustration of the little estimation in 
which our progenitors, especially the early Dutch settlers, 
held the lands in the centre of the island. At a point a 
little beyond the north side of Union Square, terminated the 
sand hills and sandy soil, which was succeeded by hard 
clay, and, further on, by a long, unbroken upheaval, as it 
were, of sterile, forbidding, gloomy gneiss rock, which ex- 
tended through the centre of the island as far as Harlem 
Commons. The early Dutch settlers, the Suydams and 
the Van Dams, the Stuyvesants, and the Ten Broecks, and 
the Hardenbroeks, the Van Cortlandts, the Waldrons, the 
Scherraerhorns, all settled along the shores of the rivers, 
where, by the washings of the upland, some soil for their 
farms and gardens was to be found. For these settlements 
they took out patents ; but would not go to the trifling ex- 
pense of a patent for any of the rough and broken soil of 
the interior. Hence the island was literally surrounded 
with settlements as far as Harlem, while its interior was 
bare and unoccupied until as late as 1772. Just before the 
struggle for independence, the whole of those waste unpa- 
tented lands was conveyed by act of the Legislature to the 
Corporation of the City of New- York, as of little value in- 
deed to any one, but still as needing some looking after. 
This sterile, broken tract, is now pierced by the Fourth, 
Fifth, and Sixth Avenues, dotted with most luxurious pri- 
vate abodes, and adorned by the noblest institutions of 
beneficence — the Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb, the 
Blind, and the Orphan. 

St. John's Church still stands, though now as far below 
the centre of population as, when built, it was beyond it. 
But another Church, constructed by Trinity at a later pe- 



13 

riod, after a flourishing existence of some forty years, has 
disappeared, to be replaced far, far up-town from its original 
locahty, by a more splendid edifice. I refer to Grace 
Church. This was commenced about 1805, on ground 
belonging to the Lutheran Church, but then occupied by a 
public house, on the corner of Broadway and Rector street ; 
the ground was purchased, and the church was built by 
Trinity Church, and presented to the congregation, which 
was then organized in Grace Church, It may be doubted 
whether there survives at this day, a single one of those 
who were then of the Vestry of Trinity Church, or of the 
first Vestry of Grace Church. 

The Scotch Presbyterian Church, in Cedar street, between 
Broadway and Nassau street, in which the eminent and elo- 
quent clergyman, Dr. John M. Mason, officiated, was pulled 
down after the War of 1812, and replaced by a new edifice 
in Murray street, opposite the College ground. In the march 
of improvement, shall I call it ? — at any rate, in the course 
of events, that church, too, has disappeared, and its site is 
now occupied by dwelling-houses.* 

The French Church du St. Esprit, founded by pious 
Huguenots, and endowed liberally by the Desbrosses and 
others, stood in Pine street, below Nassau street. In 18 — 
it was demolished, and a new marble church was built, from 
the proceeds of the sales of the lots in Pine street, at the cor- 
ner of Church and Franklin streets, where it now stands. 

Old Trinity, too, which was built in 1788 — being the 
second on the same site — the first, which was founded in 
1696, having been burned in the great fire which deso- 



* The materials of this church in Murray st. were used to build a church 
in .Eighth st., facing Astor Place, which, after serving as a Presbyterian 
Church, was sold and became an Episcopal Church ; then a Swedenborgian 
Temple, and now, as I learn since this address was delivered, has passed 
into the hands of the Roman Catholics, having been purchased by Arch- 
bishop Hughes — almost enough to make the bones of that sturdy Calvinist, 
the Rev. Dr. J. M. Mason, turn in their coflSn. 



14 

lated New- York in September, 1777, has been snperseded 
by the most beautiful church structure, probably, of modern 
days. The old church was demolished in 1839 ; the 
present edifice was commenced immediately, but it was 
not finished and ready for consecration until May 21, 
1846. Its cost, exclusive of organ, clock, bells, &c., was 
$337,994 ; to which about $20,000 was added for cost of 
organ, clock, iron railing, flagging, etc. 

It would be tedious to attempt the enumeration of all 
the church edifices which have sprung up within the half- 
century. The result will be more striking by the simple 
statement that, in 1801, the number of churches, meeting- 
houses of all denomiuations, and synagogues, in the City, 
was 32 ; in 1851, there are 260. 

For many years past the burial of the dead in the lower 
part of the City has been prohibited, and hence the early 
burial-grounds were abandoned, and few only of them 
have been held sacred from the grasp of the speculator. 
It is honorable to Trinity Church that the large yards 
around it, and its Chapel, St. Paul's, have been preserved 
from Vandalism, and yet retain the memorials of the by- 
gone generations which rest in their bosoms. The old 
Potters' Field, now Washington Square, was not called to 
give up its nameless and numberless dead ; but on their 
unconscious remains were piled acres of sand, carted down 
from the elevation of Broadway, and of the other higher 
grounds in the vicinity ; and the fine houses which now 
surround the square, and the flourishing trees which adorn 
it, cover the dust, far down, which once was breathing, 
living man. 

Of remarkable buildings which have disappeared since 
the beginning of the century, we may mention again the old 
Federal Hall, that stood till after 1812. Within its walls 
my first vote on attaining to manhood was given, in 1810. 
The foundation of the present City Hall was laid in 1803 ; 
and it is in striking contrast with the lavishness of such 



15 

ceremonials at the present day, that the appropriation for 
the whole expense was only $50. The building proceeded 
very slowly, and it was not finished till 1812, at a cost of 
$583,734. 

Another edifice of note was the Government House, 
which stood on an eminence at the foot of Broadway, 
south of Bowling Green, where now is a range of fine brick 
houses. The house was a large double brick building, 
with a showy portico in front, to which the ascent was by 
many steps ; the apartments were many and spacious, and 
the yard and garden behind extended to Bridge street, and 
occupied the whole block bounded by State street on the 
west, and by Whitehall street on the east. After 1814, 
this building, having long been used as a Custom House, 
was torn down, and the lots on which it stood, and its gar- 
den, were sold ; thus giving place to the private residences 
which front the Bowling Green, and the Battery on State 
street as far as Bridge street. 

The old City Hotel in Broadway, between Thames 
and Liberty streets, built toward the close of the last cen- 
tury — for more than fifty years the most noted house of 
entertainment in our City, and of which the assembly 
room, with its double floor most skilfully adapted to danc- 
ing, had witnessed the festive enjoyments of severalsgene- 
rations — has disappeared within the last two years...' Ex- 
pensively constructed and substantial warehouses now 
occupy its place ; and yet methinks the genius of the past 
might haunt it still ; and as the midnight, careworn 
votary of commerce toils over his weary task, there may 
break on his startled ear the accents of other days and 
other scenes — the faint echoes of long-ago-uttered harmo- 
nies — the ring of laughing, joyous, innocent youth — per- 
haps of the fervid, trusting words of plighted love — perhaps, 
too, of the fierce and menacing tones of jealous rivalry — 
for of all these, and more than all these, was that ancient, 
honored, much-loved spot cognizant. These are day- 



16 

dreams. I look again, but the illusion has vanished, and 
Mammon remains, the only grim but mighty reality. 

Another pleasant haunt, which I well remember, has 
disappeared too, though its then owner, Laurie Todd, or 
Grant Thorburn, survives, like Old Mortality, to freshen 
the inscriptions of buried races. It was the Friends' 
Meeting House, standing a little back from Liberty street, 
between Broadway and Nassau street. This, our ingenious 
little Scotsman had converted into — ^why not say, had con- 
tinued as — a temple of nature and of God ? — where he dealt 
in seeds and grains, which in their produce gladden the 
earth ; and had collected for himself and for the enjoyment 
of others, rare and beautiful plants, and rare and beautiful 
natural songsters, the Jenny Linds and Catherine Hayeses 
of the fields and the woods — sweet birds, whose untiring 
throats have no colds, nor laryngitis, nor other human ob- 
stacles to the perpetual flow of that incense to the Crea- 
tor, which the song-bird ceases not, in captivity or in his 
native freedom, to pour forth. Again Mammon displaced 
the seeds, the plants, the song-birds, and Laurie Todd, and 
broke up this pleasant haunt of nature-loving citizens, who 
only there could catch a glimpse of her beauties or an 
echo of her voice. 

But I am running ahead of my subject. Let us get 
back to 1806, from which dates the era of steam applied to 
navigation, and the great discovery — for the successful ap- 
plication of a known force in a new manner, and to new 
and before unthought-of purposes, may justly be styled a 
discovery — belongs to our City, of wliich Fulton was a 
resident, and from which the first boat — the Clermont — 
started for Albany on the 7th day of August, 1807. An 
hour might be readily occupied with a recital of the hopes 
and the fears, the almost angry doubts and passionate 
sneers, with which the announcement was received, that a 
boat without sails or oars was to be forced up the Hudson 
to Albany, against wind and tide, in a shorter time than 



17 

was ever dreamed of, and all by the vapor which the 
housewife's tea-pot sends curling into the air, to vanish in 
an instant from sight. For, at that time, steam engines, as 
applied to the various processes of manufacturing or other 
industry on land, were little known generally, and the 
whole United States furnished, it is believed, but one ma- 
chine shop or foundry where a steam-engine could be 
made, and that was opposite to this City, at Hoboken, in 
the works of Colonel Stevens, of whom more anon. 

But the Clermont, in the sight of a jeering* rather than 
encouraging crowd, got under way, and slowly, very slow- 
ly, as we now estimate speed, forged ahead ; Robert Ful- 
ton and a few chosen friends and faithful mechanics only 
on board — for he refused to take passengers generally, only 
consenting, after much solicitation, to take six, of whom 
the late Selah Strong was one, and perhaps the first man 
who ever paid for a steamboat passage up the Hudson. 

In 32 hours, running time, after stopping one night at 
the seat of R. R. Livingston, the Clermont made her ap- 
pearance at Albany, having received on her fiery track along 
the river, abundant manifestations of interest, astonishment, 
and even terror— and thereby securing the monopoly pro- 
mised by act of the Legislature to any persons who should 
accomplish the distance by steam between Albany and New- 
York at a given rate of speed.f The return trip was made 



* In a letter to his friend, Joel Barlow, relating the success of this first 
trip, Mr. Fulton says : " The morning I left New- York, there were not, per- 
haps, 30 persons in the city who believed the boat would move one mile an 
hour, or be of the least utility; and while we were putting off from the 
wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic 
remarks." 

t As early as 1798, Chancellor Livingston memorialized the Legislature 
for an exclusive privilege to navigate the waters of the State by steam- 
believing himself then to be in possession of a mode of applying steam 
successfully to navigation. 

The Legislature complied, and in March, 1798, granted to Mr. L. such 
exclusive right for the term of 20 years, on condition that within twelve 

2 



18 

in 30 continuous hours, averaging five miles an hour. The 
engine of this boat was made in the workshops of the fa- 
mous Watt, at Birmingham. 

It is a memorable proof of how little was then anticipat- 
ed from this great discovery, that the chief commercial 
newspaper of that day {Lang's Gazette) makes no allusion 
whatever to the great event, as now we must call it ; and 
that, out of five or six daily papers published in the City, 
one only (TAe American Citizen, edited by an Englishman 

Cheetham) referred to tire vessel \vhen about to take her 

departure, and published on her return the short and* mod- 
est letter in which Robert Fulton related the occurrences 
and result of the trip. Yet in the columns of these same 
papers, abundant space was given up to party recrimina- 

months, he should produce a boat, whose mean progress should not be 
less than four milts an hour. 

Mr. Livingston built a boat forthwith, but it failed, and the law remained 
in abeyance. But after the encouraging, though not wholly successful ex- 
periments made by Fulton with Chancellor Livingston's aid in France, the 
Legislature, at the instance of Mr. Livingston's friends, on 5th April, 1803, 
renewed the law of '98 in behalf of Livingston and Fulton, for 20 years- 
allowing two years, which time was afterward extended to 1807— for pro- 
ducing a boat which should move at the rate of four miles an hour, v{\i\i 
and against the ordinary current of the Hudson. 

The Clermont, or as she was afterwards called, when enlarged, "The 
North River" — just saved her distance, both as to time and speed. 

* Our readers will like to see Mr. Fulton's modest letter reprinted. 

To the Editor of the Avierican Citizen. 

Sir :— I arrived this afternoon at 4 o'clock from Albany, in the steam- 
boat. As tiie success of my experiment gives me great hopes that such 
boats may be rendered of great importance to my country, to prevent erro- 
neous oi)inions, and to give some satisfaction to the friends of useful im- 
provements, you will have the goodness to publish the following statement 
of facts : 

"I left New- York on Monday [7th Aug.] at one o'clock, and arrived at 
Clermont, the seat of Chancellor Livingston, at one o'clock on Tuesday — 
time 24 hours, distance 110 miles. On Wednesday, I departed from the 
Chancellor's at U in the morning, and arrived in Albany at 5 in the after- 
noon—distance 40 miles, time 8 liours. The sum is 150 miles in 32 lionrs 
— equal to near live miles an hour. 

On Thursday, at 9 o,clock A. M., I left Albany, and arrived at the 
Chancellor's at six. I started from there at 7 o'clock, and arrived in New- 



19 

tions and the fleeting and perishable interests and questions 
of the day. Even Fulton himself was far from seeing the 
full value of his discovery, for the scope of his original 
plan was apparently to stem the current of the Mississippi 
and similar rivers, and thus supersede with his steam the 
painful and tedious ascending navigation of those rivers by 
poles and drag-lines.* 

The palm thus gained by Fulton was closely contested 
by John Stevens, of Hoboken, who, long in concert with 
R. R. Livingstont had made experiments in steam as a 
means of propulsion, but now, aided by the genius and 



York at 4 o'clock in the afternoon ; time 30 honrs, space run through 150 
miles, equal to five miles an hour. Throughout my whole way, both going 
and returning, the wind was ahead ; no advantage could be derived from 
my sails, the whole has, therefore, been performed by the power of the 
engine. 

I am, your obedient 

ROBERT FULTON. 

* As evidence of this, the following extract from Fulton's letter to Joel 
Barlow, already referred to, may serve : 

"It will give a cheap and quick conveyance to the merchandise on the 
Mississippi, Missouri, and otlier great rivers, which are now laying open 
their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen." 

This incredulity seems less extraordinary in view of the fact, that a So- 
ciety in Rotterdam having applied to the American Philosophical Society, 
at Philadelphia, for information as to whether any improvements had been 
made in the construction of steam-engines in America, the subject was re- 
ferred to Mr. B. H. Latrobe, who made his report to the Society on 20th 
May, 1803. After stating failures in various ways of attempts to propel 
boats by steam, the report thus decisively proceeds : 

" I am well aware that there are still many very respectable and ingenious 
men, who consider the application of the steam-engine to the purposes of 
navigation as highly important, and as very practicable, especially on the 
rapid waters of the Mississippi, and who would feel themselves almost of- 
fended at the expression of an opposite opinion ; and perhaps some of the 
objections against it may be avoided." — Trans. Am. Phi. Soc. vol. G, pp. 
90-91, /r5< fart. 

f It was stated in the Address when delivered, that the experiments 
were made in concert with R. Fulton, as well as Chancellor Living- 
ston, but I have since ascertained that Co^ Stevens's acquaintance with 
Mr. Fulton began only after that gentleman's return from Europe in 
1803 or 1804. 



20 

practical mechanical skill of his son, R. L. Stevens, was 
operating separately. Almost simultaneously, but yet 
behind by that fatal quarter of an hour which deter- 
mines the fate of so many enterprises, and of so many 
human beings, both men and women, Mr. Stevens pro- 
duced, independently of Fulton's plans and experiments, 
his steamboat Phoenix ; but, precluded by the monopoly 
which Fulton's success had obtained for him of the waters 
of New- York, Mr. Stevens first employed her as a passage 
boat between this City and New-Brunswick, and finally 
conceived the bold purpose of sending her round to Phila- 
delphia by sea ; aud he executed it successfully. His son, 
Robert L. Stevens, went round with the boat in the month 
of June, 1808. A fierce storm overtook them. A schooner 
in company was driven out to sea, and was absent many 
days, but the Phoenix made a safe harbor at Barnegat, 
whence, when the storm abated, she proceeded safely to 
Philadelphia, and plied many years between that city and 
Trenton. Mr. Stevens thus earned indisputably the honor 
of first venturing and succeeding to encounter the might 
of the ocean with a steam-propelled vessel. When the 
Phoenix went round to Philadelphia, the Atlantic, and no 
other sea, had ever known the domination of victorious 
steam. Even now, when our magnificent steamers, ex- 
ceeding in dimensions line-of-battle ships, go and come with 
the regularity of mail-coaches on a beaten turnpike road, 
this first daring conception of trusting to the ocean a frail 
craft, with nothing but steam for her means of safety and 
progress, may recall the lines of the Roman lyrist : 



Illi robur et ecs triplex 

Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci 

Commisit pelago ratem, 

Primus. 

Cased was his breast in triple brass and oak, 
Who first old Ocean's'storm-tossed surface broke 
With his frail bark. 



21 

From these beginnings, the progress of steam, and the 
prodigious acceleration of speed now obtained, would aiford 
most gratifying details for examination, if our time and 
proper scope allowed. But we must— almost as if steam- 
driven — hurry on. 

The limit, the utmost limit of speed, to which Fulton 
hoped or thought it possible to attain, was seven* miles an 
hour, and that he, in later boats, accomplished ; but it was 
again reserved for the name of Stevens, in the person of 
Robert L. Stevens, after long and numerous experiments 
cautiously conducted and tested, as to the form of vessel 
best calculated to overcome the resistance of the dense 
medium through which it was to make its way, to send 
forth on the Hudson — the monopoly law of the State of 
New- York having meanwhile been overruled by the Con- 
stitution of the United States — a boat as superior in size 
and equipments as in speed to all before it, and to travel at 
the rate of 131 miles per hour. Even that is now slow, 
and the 150 miles which separate us from Albany are 
passed over by steamboats — not one but many — in eight or 
nine hours ; and the actual rate of nineteen and even 
twenty miles has been attained by some of the river boats. 
But when the New Philadelphia, R. L. Stevens's boat, in 
1814 started forth at the rate of 13^ per hour, even the 
senses were distrusted, philosophy, which had calculated 
only the resistance of the medium to the forms then usual, 
was at fault, and what had been actually done was pro- 
nounced impossible. But the steady, far-reaching mind of 
the younger Stevens knew the secret of his success — that 
it was due to the form he had given to his vessel. He saw 
too, after some trips, that even that form was far from the 
perfection he had designed, and accordingly he went to 
Brown and Bell, then, and even yet I believe, eminent ship- 

* In his patent Fulton names six miles an hour as the limit he ex- 
pected to attain, but in letters and conversation he spoke of ni7ie as pos- 
sible. 



22 

builders, and begged them to put on the New-Philadelphia 
a long, sharp, false bow, of which he gave them the draw- 
ings. After considering the proposition, they declined, 
declaring themselves unwilling to encounter the ridicule of 
what struck them as so unseemly a work, and Mr. Bell 
added that it would be called Bell's nose, and would be tlie 
general laughing-stock. Repulsed, but not disconcerted, 
young Stevens, sure of his own conclusions, built a false 
bow, at his own shop, put it on, and obtained in conse- 
quence an additional speed of several miles the hour. 
With the New-Philadelphia commenced the first day line 
to Albany. This was the commencement of the new 
models, which, alike in clipper steamers and in clipper 
ships, have given to both classes of our build and naviga- 
tion — for there is a great deal, too, in the latter — our supe- 
riority over the world. 

And here let me expatiate a little upon the service to 
the Mechanic Arts, and consequently to the welfare of hu- 
manity, of the family of Stevens, resident during the half- 
century among us. We have seen that by the lucky quar- 
ter of an hour, Fulton carried away from Stevens the prize 
of the first successful steamboat. But years before, viz., 
1804, Col. Stevens, whose fertile and ingenious mind was 
specially turned to mechanical inventions, had constructed 
and put into operation a steamboat of which the motive 
power was a propeller, the propeller which at this day I 
believe is admitted in form and proportion to be the best. 
This boat was a small one. In it Gol. Stevens put an 
engine with tubular boilers, the first ever made, now uni- 
versal in locomotives. The machinery, made under his 
own direction and in his own shop at Hoboken, set in mo- 
tion two propellers of five feet diameter each, and each 
furnished with four blades having the proper twist — to 
obtain which he had the greatest difficulty with his work- 
men — and set at an angle of about 35 degrees. This ves- 
sel — used only for testing the possibility of steam-navigation 



23 

— so completely demonstrated the fact, that Col. Stevens ap- 
plied it on a larger scale in 1806, to a pirogue, 50 feet long, 
12 wide, 7 deep — which attained very considerable speed. 
Encouraged thereby, he commenced the Phoenix with side- 
wheels, to whose success allusion has already been made. 
It is proof of the remarkable accuracy and mechanical skill 
of the Hoboken workshop, that tlie engine of the first small 
propeller, carefully preserved, was set up again, not more 
than seven or eight years ago, in a new vessel, and, without 
altering a screw, worked most successfully. The old hull 
and the blades of the propeller are yet in existence at 
Hoboken. 

Not the least useful purpose to which steam was applied 
about these times, was to the ferry-boats which dart at all 
hours across the rivers separating at once from, and bind- 
ing us to, the shores opposite our Island. The noble estu- 
aries which constitute our City so emphatically The Bride 
of the Seas, too precious for, and too constantly vexed by, 
the keels of commerce to admit of bridges as a means of 
connection, would really have isolated us from the regions 
around, but for^the happy and timely application of steam 
to navigation. I address many, doubtlesss, who remember 
the comfortless row-boats, or the more comfortless pirogues, 
which alone, until after the year 1810, afforded the means 
of crossing man or beast to Long Island or ,io Jersey City. 
The first step in advance was the introduction of horse- 
boats — twin-boats, with the wheel in the centre — set in 
motion by a sort of horizontal tread-mill wheel on which 
horses were made to step. For horses, steam was sub- 
stituted ; first by Fulton at the Fulton Ferry. Then came 
the single boats, with side-wheels, and propelled by steam, 
of which the first was the Hoboken, by R. L. Stevens, in 
1822. J She is still at work, much enlarged and sound as 
ever, and much faster than at first. As indispensable to 
the new ferry-boats, came — of Fulton's devising — the float- 
ing bridges at the ferries which rise and fall with the tide, 



24 

aided by counterbalancing weights on shore ; an invention 
ingenious in itself, and, as I have said, the indispensable 
complement of steam ferry-boats. 'The spring piles now 
used to deaden the force of the blow as the boat approaches 
the ferry, and to direct her course aright, are due to Robt. 
L. Stevens, who introduced them in 1822. 

And here I must record, though I cannot enter into any 
details, that as we were the first to witness the success of 
river steamers, so were we to originate ocean steamers. (^In 
the year 1818, the Savannah, a New- York built ship, with 
side wheels and propelled by steam and sails, went hence 
to St. Petersburgh via Liverpool, and returned safely ]\ and a 
year later, the Robert Fulton, built by Henry Eckford, un- 
der the superintendence of Jasper Lynch, for David Dun- 
ham, plied as a steam packet between this city and New- 
Orleans ; but, the business not paying, her engines were 
taken out and she was sold to the Brazilian Government as 
a ship-of-war, being of 700 tons. I have here a memorial 
of this ship, as it were from the grave. [The lecturer here 
unrolled and exhibited to the audience, a colored drawing 
of the Robert Fulton, made in 1821— deposited under one 
of the marble columns erected that year at the South en- 
trance of the Park, and disinterred, uninjured, in 1848, when 
those columns were removed.] 

( Next in succession among the operative causes of our 
growth, as connected with steam, was its application to 
land carriage, and soon the railroad and the locomotive 
were constructed to soothe and to satisfy, as far as that cafi 
be done, our national go-ahead spirit. And here again 
New- York was the point whence proceeded the first rail- 
road enterprise, which was to connect this City with Phila- 
delphia, by the Camden and Amboy Railroad, in 183L) 
and here again Col. John Stevens claims our admiration 
and gratitude. He had clearly worked out in his own 
mind, long before any locomotive was constructed in Eu- 
rope, the theory of such an application of steam, and the 



25 

actual form in which it could be advantageously made, as 
well as the cost of constructing and working a railway for 
the use of locomotives. Long before any experience existed 
to justify his anticipation, he said and published that there 
was no limit to the speed of a locomotive on a rail, but the 
strength of the materials ; that it might easily be made to 
run as fast as a pigeon could fly ; and it is one of the strik- 
ing incidents connected with the opening, or the early use 
of the Camden and Amboy Railway, that a flock of pigeons 
which had settled on the track, being disturbed in its ap- 
proach by the rapid engine, took wing in the direction of 
the track, and that one of them, attempting to cross in front 
of the car, was struck down by it ; thus most literally verify- 
ing the prediction, that the locomotive would equal in velo- 
city the pigeon's flight. 

Since this address was dehvered, I have succeeded in 
finding among the bound pamphlets of the Society Library, 
a copy of the very remarkable pamphlet upon " Railroads 
and Steam Carriages," published by Colonel Stevens, in 
May, 1812, and I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of 
briefly stating its purport here — briefly, I say, as I am 
gratified in being able to add, that the sons of that great 
benefactor of his country — themselves not without large 
claims to its gratitude and remembrance — are about to re- 
print that pamphlet, with additions and notes, which will 
make it a very curious as well as a very instructive publi- 
cation. 

Colonel Stevens, who, as has already been seen, was the 
inventor of the tubular boiler, as far back as 1804, and who 
had been an experimenter in steam, as a motive power, both 
on the water and the land, as far back as 1790, became so 
thoroughly convinced of the superiority of railways to 
canals, for internal communication and the transportation 
of passengers and produce, that when, in 1810, the project 
of connecting Lake Erie with the Hudson was so seriously 
discussed, as to lead to the appoinment by the legislature of 



26 

commissioners to examine the routes, and report upon the 
feasibiUty of the work, Colonel Stevens, after seeing their 
report, which contemplated a continuous inclined plane 
from the lake to the river, to be fed in its whole length by 
the waters of the lake, earnestly pressed upon the commis- 
sioners, as preferable alike in economy, speed, and rapidity 
of construction, a system of railways adapted to steam 
carriages. This was the origin of the pamphlet to which 
we are referring, which is in fact little else than a copy of 
his memorial to the canal commissioners, with their objec- 
tions and his rejoinder, preceded by a preface, in which 
Colonel Stevens sets forth his motives for the publication, 
and the grounds and extent of his faith in these then un- 
tried ways and carriages. Having failed to convince the 
New-York commissioners, he thus enforces the national 
advantages of his projects : 

" So many and so important are the advantages which 
these States would derive from the general adoption of the 
proposed railways, that they ought, in my humble opinion, 
to become an object of primary attention to the national 
government. The insignificant sum of two or three thou- 
sand dollars would be adequate, to give the project a fair 
trial. On the success of this experiment, a plan should be 
digested, a general system of internal conmiunication and 
conveyance be adopted, and the necessary surveys be made 
for the extension of these ways in all directions, so as to em- 
brace and unite every section of this extensive empire. 
It might, then, indeed, be truly said, that these States would 
constitute one family, intimately connected and held to- 
gether in bonds of indissoluble union." 

This remarkable paper then proceeds to estimate the 
great fiscal advantages to the federal government from the 
estimated tolls to be derived from these roads, which, while 
so light, in comparison with the actual cost of transporta- 
sion of merchandise and passengers, as to secure a prefer- 
ence, would in the aggregate, constitute a large revenue. 



27 

The practicability of commencing the work, and carrying 
it on upon many distant points at once, with a view to 
their uUimate connection, is also clearly pointed out ; and 
then comes this distinct— and when it is considered that 
there existed not in the world, at that time, railways and 
steam carriages, such as had been shadowed forth — and 
truly wonderful j^rophecij of the speed which could be at- 
tained by locomotives on railways : 

" But there remains another important point of view in 
which this improvement demands the attention of the gene- 
ral government— the celerity of communication it would 
afford with the distant sections of our wide-extended em- 
pire, is a consideration of the utmost moment. To the 
rapidity of the motion of a steam carriage on these rail- 
icai/s, no definite limit can be set. The flying proas, as they 
are called by voyagers, belonging to the natives of the islands 
in the Pacific Ocean, are said at times to sail more than 
twenty miles an hour ; but as the resistance of the water 
to the progress of a vessel increases as the squares of her 
velocity, it is obvious that the power required to propel her 
must also be increased in the same ratio. Not so with a 
steam carriage : as it moves in a fluid eight hundred times 
more rare than water, the resistance will be proportionably 
diminished. Indeed the principal resistance arises from 
friction, which does not even increase in a direct ratio with 
the velocity of the carriage. If, then, a proa can be driven 
by the wind (the propulsive power of which is constantly 
diminishing as the velocity of the proa increases), through 
so dense a fluid as water, at the rate of twenty miles an 
hour, / can see notliing to hinder a steam carriage from 
moving on these wai/s icith a velocity of one hundred miles 
an honr.^^ 

To this bold conjecture Mr. Stevens adds this note, more 
sagacious, even, than the conjecture. " The astonishing 
velocity is considered here as merely possible. It is proba- 
ble that it may not, in practice, be convenient to exceed 
twenty or thirty miles an hour. Actual experience, how- 
ever, can alone determine this matter ; and I should not be 



28 

surprised at seeing steam carriages propelled at the rate of 
forty or fifty miles an hour." 

Should it not seem that, to the teeming and enthusiastic 
mind of this most ingenious engineer, the actualities of 
railways and locomotives, which we witness now, at a dis- 
tance of forty years from this prophecy, had been, as it 
were, revealed ? Every capability, indeed, and recom- 
mendation of railways, seems to have been present to 
Colonel Stevens' mind — as, for instance, their military 
importance. 

"In a military point of view, the advantages resulting 
from the establishment of these railways and steam 
carriages, would be incalculable. It would at once render 
our frontiers on every side invulnerable. Armies could 
be conveyed in twenty-four hours a greater distance than it 
would now take them weeks or even months to march. 

" Thus, then, this improvement would afford us prompt 
and eftectual means not only of guarding against the at- 
tacks of foreign enemies, but of expeditiously quelling 
internal commotions, and thus securing and preserving for 
ever internal tranquillity." 

In the memorial to the New- York commissioners, pre- 
cise calculations are made of the cost of fuel for the loco- 
motives — of constructing the railways — which were at first 
to be of wood, raised on posts some three feet from the 
ground, so as to be clear of snow — and afterwards, when 
proved to be successful, to be plated with iron — and of 
working the whole road. These calculations are mar- 
vellously verified by the experience of this day. 

But to resume the thread of our discourse. 

Since that first road the number has multiplied in all 
directions, and such are the relations and the functions of 
this great City to all other parts of the Union, that, make a 
railroad or open a canal where you will, it must seek a 
connection with us, as the root of the plant will seek and 
find the water, in whatever direction and at whatever dis- 
tance. The number of passengers and the weight and 



29 

value of merchandise and produce now poured daily into 
our streets by the railroads from the North and the South, 
the East and the West, which terminate directly here, are 
inestimable, and every pursuit and calling is interested in 
their success. Who, before the Erie Railroad became a 
reality, ever heard of tons of strawberries, the daily meas- 
ure of the quantity of that delicate fruit thus brought in 
the season to our market ; or gallons of milk reckoned by 
the ten thousand, the daily produce of hundreds of farms 
and tens of hundreds of cows, almost warm from the 
milkhig, and innocent in a great degree of the " purling 
brook?" And so of butter, vegetables, poultry, eggs, and 
all the riches of the dairy and the farm-yard, and the or- 
chard and the garden. Think of such an incident, which 
only steamboats and railroads could bring about by bring- 
ing distant parts into connection with the metropolis, as 
that which occurred in our bay the summer before last, 
when the Amboy steamboat, laden on her decks and guards 
with baskets of peaches, then almost a drug from their 
abundance, passed alongside of an emigrant ship from 
Norway, loaded with passengers. As the vessels kept side 
by side for a while, and the numerous women and children 
looked forth wishfully upon these baskets laden with what 
might seem to them the golden fruit of the Hesperides — 
fruit which no one of them possibly had ever tasted, for 
they were from a region too cold for its growth — some 
kind-hearted person on the steamboat began to toss peaches 
on board the emigrant ship, and the delight with which 
they were caught and eaten by the emigrants was so gen- 
uine, that some dozens of hands were soon occupied in like 
manner on board the steamboat, and for the brief time that 
the vessels were abreast, a steady shower of peaches fell 
upon the emigrant deck. What a notion must such an 
accidental reception have imparted to them of the country 
that was to be their future home. 

The locomotives first used on the Camden and Amboy 



30 

Railroad were made or constructed by Robert L. Stevens, 
at his works, or upon his models in England, differing in 
details from those in use in England. At the outset 
he applied a spark-catcher, though patents for like con- 
trivances have since been taken out ; and he invented 
and applied then, and has continued ever since, and other 
railways have adopted the contrivance of the guide, or cow- 
catcher, as it is commonly called from an incidental func- 
tion it discharges, of which the wheels, easily following 
the curves, give a direction to the forward wheels of the 
locomotive, fixed on an axle slightly movable, as with the 
forward pair of carriage wheels, and thus enable it, without 
danger of flying off at a tangent, to diverge from its 
straight, onward, rapid course. 

The invention of the Trail, which renders travelling 
so secure, is also due to R. L. Stevens. He went to Eng- 
land with the model, presented it to the engineers and iron- 
masters, and begged they would make him rails on that 
pattern, but all declined, saying that they had no machin- 
ery which could do it. He persisted, and finally obtained 
from Mr. Guest, a member of Parliament, and a great iron- 
master, an order to use his furnaces in Wales. Mr. Stevens 
posted thither, wrought with his own hands at the work, 
but at tiie moment of success the machinery gave way, 
and he was obliged to return to London. Yet undismayed, 
and abating no jot of hope, he asked permission, after pay- 
ing, himself, the expenses of repairing the damage to the 
machinery, to try again. It was given ; he did try and 
succeeded, and gave to the world, taking no patent, that 
form of rail now universal on every secure road. So much 
for an American mechanic* 

* The extent, variety, and value of Mr. R. L. Stevens's labors and in- 
ventions in mechanics, should have more fitting commemoration than can 
be given in any passing notice by one unskilled, as is the writer of this, in 
the mechanic arts. Yet he cannot suffer this allusion to Mr. Stevens to go 
forth, without attempting at least to enumerate some of the many services 



31 

But after steam, or rather aided by steam, more efficient 
than all other causes of the wonderful growth and unpa- 
ralleled prosperity" of the City, was the completion of the 
Erie Canal in 1825. 

and ingenious inventions and appliances of that gentleman in steam, in 
gunnery, and in mechanics. From the time when a mere boy, in 180-1-5, 
he was zealously working in the machine-shop at Hoboken, up to the 
passing hour, he has given his time, his faculties, and his money, to what 
may be justly described as experimental philosophy, and the results have 
been of great public benefit. Of some of them, the following chronological 
record may bear witness. 

1808. Hollow or concave water-lines in the bow, were introduced for 
the first time in the steamboat Phenix — the first steamboat that ever 
breasted the ocean; these lines, iinder the name of "wave lines," are now, 
as I understand, claimed abroad as a recent English application. On the 
same vessel, in 1809, he first used vertical buckets on pivots. 

f 1809. Suspended the projecting guard-beam by iron rods, from above — 
now universal in river steamers. 

1813-14, the war with England being then in progress, he invented, 
after numerous and most hazardous experiments, the elongated shell, to be 
fired from ordinary cannon. Having perfected this invention, he sold the 
secret to the United States, after making experiments to prove their de- 
structiveness, so decisive as to leave no doubt of the efficacy of such pro- 
jectiles. One of these experiments was made at Governor's Island in the 
presence of officers of the army, when a target of white-oak, four feet thick 
and bolted through and through with numerous iron fastenings, was com- 
pletely destroyed by a shell weighing 200 lbs. and containing 13 lbs. of best 
Battle powder ; this solid mass of wood and iron was torn asunder; the 
opening made was large enough, as the certificate of the officer command- 
ing. Col. House, stated, for a man and horse to enter. 

These shells are free from the danger accompanying ordinary shells, for 
they are hermetically sealed, and suffer no deterioration from time. Some 
of these, after being kept 25 years, by way of proving their safety till needed 
and as needed, were tested by exploding gunpowder under them, and then 
they were taken to high places and let fall on rocks below, and all without 
causing them to explode. After this they were plunged into water, and 
then being put into the cannon were fired, and upon striking the object 
exploded with devastating effect. 

1813. First to fasten planks and braces of steamboats (in the Philadel- 
phia) with screw bolts, and to place diagonal knees of wood and iron inside 
of them. 

1815. First to use steam expansively in steamboat Philadelphia. 

1818. First to burn anthracite coal in a cupola furnace, and subse- 



32 

Eight years before this work was commenced ; and on 
4th of November, 1825, the flotilla of canal boats which 
left Buff"alo on the 26th of the preceding month, reached 
the City, and, escorted by ships of war, by steamboats, and 

quently to introduce this fuel in fast steamers— the Passaic being the earli- 
est to use it. 

1822. To substitute for the heavy solid cast-iron walking-beam of steam- 
boats the skeleton wrought-iron walking-beam (in the Hoboken) now in 
universal use. 

1824. First to place the boilers on the guards, and to divide in steam- 
boat Trenton the buckets on the water-wheels. 

1827. First on steamboat North America to apply successfully artifi- 
cial blast to the boiler furnace by means of blowers, and in the same boat to 
apply what is technically known as the Hog frame, now general in fast 
boats, consisting of the large timbers on the sides to prevent the boat from 
bending in the centre, or as it is called, being hogged. 

1828. First applied steel spring bearings under centre of the wheel shaft 
of the steamer New Philadelphia. 

1832. First to introduce in New Philadelphia perfect balance valves, now 
in general use in steamboats, which enable one man to work the largest 
engine with ease. In same year he used braces to the connecting rod, thus 
strengthening it and preventing its tremulous motion. 

1832-3. Constructed a boat (between Camden and Philadelphia) capa- 
ble of navigating through solid heavy ice. In the same year he constructed 
and introduced tubular boilers, having the fire under the bottom and re- 
turning through the tubes. 

1840. Improved the packing of pistons for steam engines by using the 
pressure of steam instead of hemp, steel springs, india rubber, &c., to 
retain the metallic packing ring against the surface of the cylinder. One 
of these rings which has been in use on board steamer Trenton since 1840, 
is at this day in good order. 

1841. Tlie Stevens Cut-off, by means of main valves worked by two 
eccentrics, invented by R. L. Stevens and his nephew (for mechanical 
ingenuity and skill run in the blood), F. B. Stevens; these are generally 
used now in the river boats and in the ocean steamers built in New- 
York. In the same year he invented and applied on the Camden and Am- 
boy rail-road tlie double slide cut-oflT, for locomotives and large engines ; 
and improved locomotives for transporting goods, &c., by using eight 
wheels, and with increased adhesion was enabled to turn short curves with 
little friction on the flanges ; also used anthracite as a fuel to great advan- 
tage on the heavy engines, weighing 24 tons, with wheels of 42 inch dia- 
meter, cylinders of 18 inches, and 34 inch stroke. 

1842. Having contracted to build for the United States government a 



33 

pilot boats, and all manner of water-craft, dressed in all the 
varieties of national flags and fancy colors, and saluted by 
two British sloops of war then lying in our waters, and as 
gayly decorated for the occasion as any of our own ves- 
sels — proceeded to Sandy Hook, where the Governor, De 
Witt Clinton, poured into the briny water of the Atlantic 
some of the bright fresh water of Lake Erie, brought for 
the purpose, in token of the espousals then and there 
celebrated of our Mediterranean with the great sea — a 
bridal more significant and of more far-reaching influences 
than the historic marriage of the Doge of Venice with the 
Adriatic. 

To Dr. Mitchell — renowned for much and various 



large war steamer shot and shell proof, R L. Stevens built a steamboat at 
Bordentown for the sole purpose of experimenting on the forms and curves 
of propeller blades, as compared with side wheels, and continued his expe- 
riments for many months, the result of vvhicli we may yet hope to sue in 
an iron war steamer tliat will be invincible, and so should 'be named. While 
occupied with this design he invented about 1844, and took a patent for, a 
mode of turning a steamship of war on a pivot, as it were, by means of a 
cross propeller near the stern, so that rf one battery were disabled, she 
might in an instant almost present the other. 

1848. This year succeeded in advantageously using anthracite in fast 
passenger locomotives. 

184'J witnessed the successful application of air under the bottom of 
steamer J>Avi Neilson., whereby friction is diminished, and she has actually 
gone at the rate of 20 miles an hour; this was the invention of R. L Ste- 
vens and F. B. Stevens. Tiie John Neilson also has another .ingenious and 
effectual contrivance of R. L. Stevens, first used in 1849, for preventing ill 
consequences from the foaming of the boiler. In conclusion of this dry and 
imperfect chronological recital of some of R. L. Stevens's contributions to 
the mechanic arts, to public convenience and national power, as well as re- 
nown, it must be added tliat Mr. Stevens is himself the modeller of all the 
vessels built by or for him, and that many of our fastest yachts are of his 
moulding; and especially the Maria, which beat without difficulty the 
victorious America, which in her turn carried the broom at her mast-head 
through the British Channel, distancing all ctmipetitors, as she continues 
to do, I believe, under her new owner, in the Mediterranean. 

Of such a man, not the mechanics only of our city, among whom he has 
worked, and is well known, but the nation may well be proud. 

a 



84 

learning and rare simplicity of character — was assigned 
the dnty of minghng with the married waters of the 
Atlantic and the lakes — from bottles he had collected for 
the occasion — water from the Ganges and from the Indus 
in Asia, the Nile and the Gambia in Africa, the Thames, 
the Seine, the Rhine, and the Danube of Europe, the Mis- 
sissippi and Columbia of North America, and the Orinoco, 
the River Plate and the Amazon of South America, in 
token of the fellowship that day established between the 
great interior of our country, and all the nations whose 
lands so many rivers fertilize. " I pronounce," said the 
enthusiastic Doctor, as he concluded the ceremony — "I 
pronounce the connection blessed — for perpetual and incal- 
culable will be its benefits." He is long since gathered to his 
fathers, as are most of the prominent ]iersons in that re- 
markable day's ceremonial ; but the blessing he invoked 
and pronounced has been fruitful beyond his utmost 
hopes, or the scope of the most sanguine vision of the most 
sanguine man who stood amid the rejoicing thousands and 
tens of thousands who welcomed that first flotilla from the 
Canal. 

By the espousals of that day, the Doctor well and 
pointedly said, " the circumfluent Ocean was repuhlican- 
22;ec/"_and so in fact it is, for none now will venture to 
claim dominion over it, or assert on it, or as to it, any 
rights inconsistent with that equality among nations which, 
like equality before the law among individuals, is one of 
the chief essentials of republicanism. 

Of all the principal personages who took part in the 
pageant, how few, how very few, survive ! Governor 
Clinton, to whom more than to any single man, more than 
to all other men, the success of the enterprise of the Canal 
is due, is among the dead — it shames me as a New-Yorker 
to add among the, I will not say forgotten, but the nncom- 
memorated dead. He who by his perseverance against 
obstacles of every nature, physical, financial, and factious, 
steadily kept his way onward, and eventually accomplished 



35 

the great enterprise, has no monument from the City of 
whicli his labors more than doubled the population and 
the wealth, even before he himself had tasted of death, and 
which, as time rolls on, add annually, not by units nor by 
tens of thousands, but by millions to its wealth. The 
Canal, of which the 4th November, 1825, witnessed the 
completion, made its first payment into the State Treasury 
in the year 1821 — a small portion only of the work being 
then in use — and this first payment was $2,300. It pays 
this year into the Treasury more than three millions and a 
half of dollars! Thirty years have elapsed between the 
first payment and the last, and the aggregate poured into 
the State Treasury during those thirty years, exceeds 
fortij-si.v tnilUons of dollars. And yet again, I repeat, 
neither the State nor the City of New-York has erected a 
monument to their greatest benefactor, De Witt Clinton.* 

The celebration of that Canal Jubilee was probably the 
most elaborate and most imposing public ceremony ever 
witnessed in this City. I know that it is common to speak 
of each celebration in turn as the finest ; but I who have 
witnessed a great many fine pageants here and elsewhere, 
have never seen one which, in all its efi'ects and moral 

* A few figures, taken from official returns, will illustrate the wonderful 
impulse given by the Canals (mainly) to business, and to the value of pro- 
perty both in this City and in the State. 

In 1824, the official valuation of the real and personal property of the 
City was $83^075,676, being an increase of only one million and a half over 
the valuation of 1815 — a period often years. 

In 1826. the first year of open Canal navigation, the valuation was 
$5107,447,781, and in 1835, at the expiration of another period often years, 
the valuation was $218,723, 703, or more than double ! 

So of the whole State, the official valuation of the real and personal 
estate was, in 1824, $269,485,625— being less, by $11,769,498, than the 
official valuation in 1815— a period often years. 

In 1835, another period of ten years, the valuation was $528 376,379— 
again almost double. 

In tlie year 1851, at the close of the quarter of a century since the canals 
were completed, the official valuation of the real and personal property in 
the State was one thousand and seventy-five millions I! ! ov four times greater 
than the amount in 1824. 



36 

considerations, and actual display on land and on water, 
equalled the Canal Jubilee of November 4, 1825. 

It is sad to think how few, how very few, of the promi- 
nent personages on that occasion now survive. He, the 
chief figure, De Witt Clinton ; Stephen Van Rensselaer, 
President of the Canal Board ; Cadwallader D. Colden, the 
Historiographer of the Canals ; William L. Stone, who, 
under the direction of the corporate authorities, compiled a 
memoir of the celebration ; Richard Riker, the Recorder; 
Dr. S. L. Mitchell, the amiable, learned, and eccentric 
philosopher ; the Aldermen composing the Committee of 
Reception, Messrs. Henry Wyckotf, W. A. Davis, Philip 
Hone, and Elisha W. King ; William Bayard, Chairman 
of the Merchants' Committee; the general commauding 
the artillery, General Jacob Morton, of most pleasant 
memory, for his many kindnesses and vu'tues ; and another 
general of rare qualities and discernment, whom it was my 
good fortune to know well, and serve with during the war 
of 1812, Jonas Mapes, long an honored member of this 
Society; Commodore Chauncey, then in command of the 
Navy Yard, and who entered most heartily into the cele- 
bration ; the then President of the United States, who 
was invited but was unable to be present. John Q.uincy 
Adams ;— all, all have passed from the scene. There were 
then living, too, three of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, Charles Carroll, of Carollton, Thomas Jef- 
ferson, and John Adams, to each of whom, as well as to 
each of the surviving ex-presidents, Madison and Monroe, 
gold medals, struck in commemoration of the event, were 
presented by vote of the Corporation. Rufus King, and 
other men of the Revolution, and of the early days of the 
Constitution, were also then living, but all have long since 
paid the debt of nature ; all, however, were enabled, as 
their eyes closed for the last time upon the country they 
had loved and served, to rejoice in the grateful conviction 
that they had not toiled, nor suffered, nor struggled in vain, 
and that they left behind them a country and institutions 



37 

abounding in prosperity and blessings beyond aught that 
ever before had fallen to the lot of man, and in men capa- 
ble by their enterprise, foresight, courage, virtue, and intelli- 
gence, to preserve and protect those institutions. 

Tt is a curious fact in connection with this celebration 
in New- York, that the intelligence of the departure of the 
flotilla from Buti'alo, on the morning of the 26th of October, 
was communicated to this City by discharges of cannon, 
stationed along the whole line, in one hour and ttoenty mi- 
nutes ! That, in this day of electric telegraphs, seems lit- 
tle remarkable ; but at that day it was unsurpassed velocity 
of communication. The answer was returned in like man- 
ner and in like time, so that in less than three hours Buf- 
falo had spoken to New- York— nay, to the Ocean — for a 
cannon was at Sandy Hook, and received a reply. The 
time between Albany and Sandy Hook was twenty-one 
minutes. 

There are many incidents connected with that celebra- 
tion which it might be profitable and would be very agree 
able to me personally to recall, for I was an active participator, 
as one of the Assistant Marshals of the day ; but time will 
not permit it. One, however, 1 must mention as eminently 
honorable to the character of the City. 

It is stated in the following extract from the Report of 
the Marshal-in-Chief, Gen. Augustus Fleming — yet happily 
among us in vigorous health, and enjoying all men's re- 
spect : — 

" I reserve this place," says the Grand Marshal, in his 
official report to tlie Corporation, " to note that during the 
day, a very large portion of our population passed under 
my immediate observation and that of the gentlemen asso- 
ciated with me ; and it gives me great pleasure to remark, 
that not a solitary instance of riot or disorder of any kind 
was witnessed by either of us — the same good feeling that 
animated the procession appeared to have extended itself 
to the spectators. It was found necessary in two instances 
to remove obstructions which would impede the progress of 



38 

the large stages. The request to perform this task was 
made to individuals in the crowd, by whom it was imme- 
diately and carefully executed. The procession numbered 
6,900 persons, with a large array of banners, stages drawn 
by six and eight horses, on which were trades in operation, 
fire engines, &c., &.C., yet the whole column passed over 
the prescribed route of four and a half miles, without an 
accident of any sort, in 2 hours and 50 minutes. [It is to 
be noted that there were no mihtary in this procession, the 
celebration being within the period of the annual election, 
when troops are forbidden to parade.] 

Let me add to this, to complete a moral picture of which 
this City may be ever proud, and the Inemory of which it 
cannot be other than beneficial to recall, that Dr. Coventry, 
the Mayor of Utica, and chairman of the delegations from 
the western part of the State, in his letter of thanks in be- 
half of those delegations for the hospitalities of the City, 
uses this language : " We have witnessed (and we confess 
with wonder) that an inunense population may pass a day 
in rejoicing and festivity and exhibit a self-respect that for- 
bade even the appearance of vice and depravity. Who in 
former times ever witnessed a scene similar to that of the 
4th instant, without observing a single instance of inebri- 
ation or hearing a sound that would shock the chastest 
ear ?" 

It lies in my way to say that among the festivals and 
rejoicings consequent upon this event, was a very magnifi- 
cent military and civic ball at the Lafayette Theatre, of 
which, 1 suppose, few among my hearers remember the 
existetice — a half-theatre, half circus in Laurens-street, near 
Canal. It has vanished away, as have other theatres — one 
which stood on the present site of Christ's Church in An- 
thony street, in which the elder Kean first appeared in this 
country ; and the old Park, which, after being twice de- 
stroyed by fire, has now given place to the demands of 
commerce, which is tending so rapidly up Broadway. 
Indeed, there are few more remarkable changes than the 



89 

change in the place of business during the last ten or 
twelve years. 

The Bank of New- York, and the first Branch Bank of 
the United States, built and entered upon their banking 
houses in Wall street, in 1800, and that, together with the 
existence of the Tontine Coffee-Honse lower down, then 
the rendezvous of the merchants, and used as the Ex- 
chariiie* fixed that street as the Lombard street of our 
London, and so it continues, so it will ever endure — for all 
private residences, of which it was mostly made up, within 
my memory, have yielded to the demands of Mammon, 
and been converted into his temples. Business, therefore, 
formed itself upon that street as an established centre. 

( Pine street, in like manner, which, until after the peace 
witti England in 1815, was the abode of distinguished 
merchants and lawyers, where Jno. Wells, and Thomas 
Addis Emmet, and D. B. Ogden, and Samuel Jones, and 
the Radcliffs among the lawyers, and Oliver Wolcott, and 
Jonathan Burral, and others of merchants and financiers 
resided, has been entirely demolished and rebuilt, in some 
instances more than once since that period, and now not a 
private dwelling remains in it ; nor between Pearl street 
and Broadway, a single building that stood there in 1815. 
Pearl street, which up to the time of the desolating fire of 
1835, concentrated almost all the great dry goods and job- 
bing establishments, has lost its favor, and Broad street, 
and Beaver street, and Broadway from the Battery to Ca- 
nal street, have become its rivals and successors. The in- 

* It is not without interest, as marking a change in manners, to add that 
twelve o'cloclv was then the hour of '^ high 'Change," and that one of the 
customs among the frequenters of the Exchange, seldom " honored by a 
breach " at that day, was to take a glass of punch with a chunk of raw 
codfish and sea biscuit, by way of nooning, at the bar in the centre of the 
great room. Overhead was the ordinary, where dinner was served at 3 
o'clock. A peculiarity of that apartment was, a large fan suspended above 
the centre of the table, worked by a waiter, which swept with its fresh 
breeze the whole length of the table, cooling guests and dishes, and effectu- 
ally driving away the flies. 



40 

troduction of railroads terminating on the North River, the 
improvement of the piers, the enormous influx of passen- 
gers by the North River steamboats, which all land on 
that side, have renovated Greenwich street and the streets 
between it and Broadway, so that in these, too, all private 
residences have disappeared, and warehouses of the most 
spacious dimensions and costly construction have ejected, 
by golden appliances, the old dwellers of the First and 
Third Wards. Even ColTmibia College, with its pleasant 
grounds, sadly invaded in later years by the encroachments 
of Trade, and its secular trees of ages, beneath which gen- 
eration after generation has sported, is sorely beset to pack 
up and be ofl' up town ; but it has deep roots, and may 
yet stand its ground for a time. J 

Nor must I fail to record, as a very marking event in 
the life of this great City, the introduction in the Autumn 
of 1825 of the Italian Opera by the as yet unapproached 
Garcia troupe, which first taught us to appreciate music. 
No one whose attention has been at all turned to the sub- 
ject, can fail to contrast the educated taste for, and real en- 
joyment of, good music, now prevalent in our city, with the 
mere uninstructed musical instincts, which before the ap- 
pearance among us of the Signorina, and the troupe of 
which she was the "bright particular star," lavished all 
their admiration on Incledon^s ballads (his "Black-Eyed 
Susan" always brought down the house at the old Park) 
and Philips' falsetto sentimentalities. 

But in the same year, and almost in the same month 
with the canal came the Italian troupe, and soon took the 
town captive ; many, indeed, very many, went to listen 
through fashion, and scoffed often at what seemed to them 
unintelligible jargon of speech, and confused mingling of fid- 
dles and trombones and the human voice divine. But in- 
sensibly even the scofi"ers were charmed, first into listening, 
then into feeling, and finally into comprehending and ad- 
miring. The taste for this higher phase of art was wide- 
ly diff"used, and a new sense was revealed — it may almost 



41 

be said — to our people, by the consummate performances of 
Garcia and his matchless daughter, and their companions. 
Hence the welcome since that day given to the various 
operatic troupes which have visited us, and to individual 
artists, such as Ole Bull and tSivoi-i. Jenny Lind and Cath- 
erine Hayes, and to that most refined attraction provided 
in summer at the Castle Garden, for those who are bound 
down to the city, of exquisite music on our exquisite bay, 
at prices which all can compass. 

It is not extravagant to speak of him to whom we owe 
the first introduction of the opera, himself a native New- 
Yorker, the late Dominick Lynch— alas ! to how many 
was his death a deep grief — as well-deserving of his coun- 
trymen, for introducing and cultivating among them the 
knowledge and love of such music. 

But again let us pause, and look back, to mark some 
other and earlier changes of customs and of places. As 
to public markets, we now have eleven, besides the general 
authority to sell meats and vegetables in private stalls all 
over tlie City. 

Of public markets in 1802, and there were then none 
other, there were five : the Exchange Market, across 
Broad street, between Pearl and Water streets ; the Fly 
Market, at the foot, and the Oswego Market, at the head of 
Maiden-lane, with its front on Broadway, and Bear Mar- 
ket — now Washington Market — on the North River. 

The Park, or that part of it occupied by the City Hall, 
was graced with the Alms House. The present Hall of 
Records was the Debtor's Jail ; and, corresponding with it, 
on the Broadway side, but of which no trace now remains, 
was the Biidewell — a building of severe aspect, but by no 
means destitute of just architectural proportions. It was 
taken down about fifteen years ago. Murray street in 1802 
extended as a paved street across the Park. 

The State Prison was established in this City about the 
commencement of the century, and a secure and extensive 
edifice was erected on the shores of North River. A high 



i2 

wall surrounded the edifice, upon which armed sentinels 
paced their constant round. A part of the building, with 
its cupola, still stands— far inland now, for there are sev- 
eral streets between it and the river : but the State Prison 
was removed to Sing Sing, and two more, one at Auburn, 
in the centre, and one at Clinton, in the north part of the 
State, have since been added. For the Bridewell, in 
the Park, the prison in Centre street — commonly known 
as the Tombs — was finally substituted. It was com- 
menced in IS^, in what is styled Eg^-jitian architecture, 
and was finished in 1S36. A more unsightly, gloomy- 
structure — perhaps therefore not inappropriate — is rarely to 
be seen. The Alms House and Hospital at Bellevue su- 
perseded that in the Park, af.er an intennediate pause 
at the building in the rear of the City Hall, in which 
many of the Courts are now held, and the oflaces of various 
civil officers. To the noble structures which of late years 
have sprung up on Blackwell's and on Randall's Island, 
for a Penitentiary. Asylum for the Insane Poor, Workhouse 
and Asylums and Schools for the thousands of destitute 
children, snatched from ignorance and vice, and educated 
to usefulness and honor. I can only make a passing refer- 
ence, as eminently creditable to the Uberahty and humani- 
ty of the City. 

Nor can I do more than hasiiiy enumerate some of the 
private institutions which have been founded within our 
period, and still flourish, for the alleviation of human suf- 
ferinsr, for the refonnation of youthful criminals, or for the 
promotion of religion aud knowledge. 

The >'ew-York Hospital, of ante-revolutionary founda- 
tion, caused to b? built in ISIS, at Bloomingdale, the Asy- 
lum/or the Insane, which now alfords to this most afflicted 
class of human beings all the solace that can be provided 
by science, humanity and constant and active supervision 
on the part of the Trustees against abuse — so easy, alas ! 
and too often so natural in such institutions. 

In 1S17. the Institution for the Education of the Deaf 



and Dumb was founded, but its present commodious and 
spacious edifice was not completed and occupied till 1834. 

The hiMitution for thn Bliwl. established in 1831, was 
placed in its present eligible building in 1839. Both these 
institutions are of private origin, but are liberally aided by 
the State, which provides permanently for the expenses of 
a certain number of deaf mutes, and of blind from each 
County. Pay-pupils, moreover, are received and exceed- 
ingly well taken care of.- and instructed in both establish- 
ments. 

The Orphan Asylum, founded May 1. 1806, by ladies, 
has been a blessing even in this life to its founders, not less 
than to the recipients of its charities. Two of these found- 
ers, Mrs. Hamilton, the widow of the great Alexander 
Hamilton, and Mrs. Divie B^thune, the widow of a pros- 
perous New- York merchant of that day, still survive — far 
beyond the extreme limit of four-score years — but whose 
age is not sorrow and vanity, but receives all men's rever- 
ence, and rejoices in the success of the good works of earlier 
days. 

The Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, opened with- 
in the last seven or eight years — a noble charity founded 
on the liberal bequest of an old New-Yorker, Mr. J. Q,. 
Leake, and enhanced by the liberality of another old New- 
Yorker, Mr. Watts, who, in behalf of the institution, waived 
a claim he had on Mr. Leake's legacy. 

The Colored Orphan Asylum — also the result of fe- 
male benevolence — organized in 1836; the Half -Orphan 
Asylum, and the Romo,n Catholic Orpluin Asylum, all 
open their doors and provide shelter, food, raiment and edu- 
cation for those otherwise without resources on earth. 

The Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with 
Small Children, the first institution of the kind in this 
country or in England, was founded about the beginning 
of the century, and was organized in good time to relieve 
many who were left destitute by the yellow fever, which 
so severely scourged this City and Philadelphia at the close 



44 

of the century. Its beneficiaries tor the year '4$, (the last 
report accessible to us\ numbered 3SS widows, with 1.0*23 
small children. 

The House of Refusr^, for the reformation of Juvenile 
Offenders, was established by private subscription. Its 
beneficial action was soon so obvious, that it was recogniz- 
ed by the Courts ; and to it were consigned youthful pris- 
oners — novices in vice — whom it was reasonably hoped to 
reclaim by secluding them for a time from evil associations 
and temptations, an I giving to them education and a trade. 

But Houses of Refuge, and Houses of Benevolence, Pen- 
itentiaries. Prisons and Penal Laws, are all powerless, com- 
parauvely, without Popular Education. This truth was 
deeply felt, as, in the early swell of our commercial prosper- 
ity at the commencement of the centur}". and the rapid 
growth of our population. Crime and Ignorance increased 
too. Tbe Society of Friends — always earnest and forward 
in good works — were largely instrumental in measures for 
widespread popular education: and they were well and 
successfully aided by De Witt Clinton, on so many groimds 
entitled to the lasting gratitude of his native State. Through 
his potent co-operation the Public School Societi/ was in- 
corporated in 1S05. This Society immediately caused 
schools to be opened in different parts of the city, and actu- 
ally employed persons to go about and seek out children 
whom they might educate, either gratuitously, or at a cost 
so small as hardly to constitute a consideration for any fam- 
ily. They were successful, eminently, and until the year 
1S42, had the field to themselves, except in the parochial 
and Sunday Schools kept up by different religious denom- 
inations. In 1S42, from considerations which this is not 
the occasion to discuss, the system of Ward Schools, wholly 
supported by taxation and affording gratuitous instruction, 
was authorized by the Legislature, and these two educat- 
ing bodies go on in their respective spheres, harmoniously, 
and, it is hoped, beneficially. The nmnber of schools in 
charge of the Society is 115 ; that of the Weird Schools, 45 ; 



4o 

the latter, hcarerer, :. - - rdaiiii? more pupiis . 

former. 

Th-- - .-:,-..-,- -^-. --. - .- .- - -- 

those c . , - 

pcraied Acadenues and BejoevolcaiT Ass>aaDc«is, ail lariiich 
receive aid £it>ni the Siaie in proporoDE lo the nuaiber of 
tiieir pupils. 

The axDonni apptorDoned for ihe Treaj 1S49. for all ih^^e 
schools, by the E "" ^ ' ' z. -Bras 8"^ ' ""'^^ 
S39.S53 Tas re: ^ ^ „ie: ihe . - 

600 \ras raised by taxation on the real and peiscaial pro- 
perty * " Ne\r-York. The ^rbole nmnbei 
taughi r 1S4S-9. laras Sa.5i>5. 

And I may find no more fitting opporraniry ihan this 
to say of your ? , . „ - 

done its pan xc . _ . : 

simply as an institution ^f baaeroleair-.e — fcff the exercise 
of ■>"vrs 

ai._ . .„ . :ity, 

"w-hich bop^th all thing? and believetii all ttiings. migtit be 
most b J v-»n- 

ing the -.-„.. ..„; ^- icis ; 

and thence the step \ra5 easy and natmal to a school for 
the gratuitous -. of the of the : 

and for the es; ;iit ofaii-^. ^ces' Ldh:.. , ....^ 

Ke-ading-Room. The success of the sdiCK^I led to a furdiex 
enlargement of iu and now, in addition to : :" m- 

digent members, it receires pay-pupils, ai^.. .... ^^. ^..-iives 

funds for the library and reading-room : heuce the dour- 
ishing condition of the school, the librarr. and the lecrure- 
room of the Society. It is a proud thing tor r -:■ < -- - - 

to be able to say diat you have a school of ' ' ^ 

in t\ro depirtmenis, about equally divided as to numbers 

of boys and gir' = * -r ' : - .. . :.- 

instruction, in .. _ 

eludes the Fi"ej3ch language, pamtmg, di'axrmg and music — 



46 

the true humaniiies, which lefiue the mind while adding 
to its resources and its powers. 

Your Ubrary, too, of some 15,000 vohimes, which I am 
rejoiced to see by the last annual report is freely and large- 
ly availed of by the apprentices, is all the while sowing 
good seed, which cannot fail of yielding in after time a 
precious harvest. Thus it is that the Mechanics of New- 
York are trained, and thence it is that as a body they are 
not excelled in intelligence, in character, and in real and 
substantial value lo the community and to the country 
which they adorn, by any other class of citizens. 

I cannot but remember, moreover, standing where I do, 
that the building in which we are now assembled was ori- 
ginally erected by an association of which I had the lionor 
to be a member, for a High School, and that it prospered 
well for several years under the charge of Prof. Griscom.* 
who, at a great age, still survives. This school aimed to 
give, and did give, in both departments, male and female, 
higher education than was then attainable generally at the 
common schools ; but these now are equal to the best, and 
the High School Association was dissolved and its property 
sold — returning, as far as I can remember,»to its stock- 
holders, nearly the whole of their original investment, be- 
sides the satisfaction of doing, as may be hoped, some good 
in the cause of education. 

Tbat property purchased by your Society, and rendered 
more accessible as well as more valuable by the addition 
of a lot on Broadway, through which an entrance is effect- 
ed from that great thoroughfare, instead of being, as origi- 
nally, from Crosby street, is still sacred to education and 
knowledge, and in hands \hsit will see to its prospering and 
progressing in that holy cause. I rejoice to stand again in 
this well-filled hall, as I was wont to stand occasionally 



* Soon after tliis address was delivered, the venerable John Griscom 
died, on 25th February, in his 77th year, at Burlington, New Jersey. 



47 

long years ago, in my visits to the High School, and to 
bear anew my testimony, to which the flight of years and 
the mature observation of men and events should impart 
some added weight, that no man can go amiss, in this our 
day and generation, who lends his aid and influence, how- 
ever feeble they may be, to advance the cause of sound 
knowledge, founded upon sound morals. The world 
around us, on our Southern Continent and in Europe, is 
heaving with the throes of peoples struggling for the com- 
mon rights of humanity ; here we enjoy them all, and all 
enjoy them ; and while we are mindful to train up tlie 
young, alike by precept and by example, to good know- 
ledge and good morals — the only sure foundations of ra- 
tional liberty — we shall preserve, and deserve to preserve, 
those rights. 

The introduction and use of Gas for lighting our streets 
and houses, was one of the improvements which just pre- 
ceded the completion of the Canal, and was thus ready for 
the great growth thereby imparted to the City. 

London and other European cities had for some years 
been partially or wholly lighted by gas, and great had been 
the benefits in the prevention of crime, so much favored by 
the "darkness visible," which was so usually the charac- 
teristic of the old oil street-lamps, and in the security against 
accidents. 

In March, 1823, the New- York Gas Light Company 
was incorporated in perpetuitj^, with a capital of $1,000,- 
000 — of which less than half was paid in when the Com- 
pany was organized, and commenced work — and to this 
day only ^750,000 have been called in, leaving one-fourth 
of the capital to be availed of when or if circumstances 
require. 

Samuel Leggett was first President of the Company, 
and so continued from April, 1823, to July, 1827, when he 
was succeeded by Win. W. Fox, who still holds and efli- 
ciently executes that office. Timothy Dewey was the first 



48 

Manager, and after visiting Europe to familiarize himself 
with tlie management of gas-works there, entered on his 
duties in June, 1S23, and remained in charge of the works 
till October, 1831, when he was succeeded by John Morton^ 
who still remains as manager. 

The apparatus first put up was for the manufacture of 
Gas from oil, and was imported from England, the re- 
quisite; machinery at that time not being made in this 
country. Mains were laid, benches of retorts were put up 
with one gas-holder of 15,000 feet capacity, which was 
found sullicient for the commencement of operations. The 
price first charged for gas from oil was one dollar for 100 
cubic feet. On the 1st of May, 1828, this was reduced to 
90 cents, when 7'osin was gradually introduced and used 
with oil, till, at the close of 1830, oiUwas discontinued en- 
tirely, beiug found too expensive — the cost for ordinary 
whale-oil averaging 26 cents per gallon. 

With the introduction of a cheaper material, the price 
of the gas became cheaper, falling to 80 cents in 1829, and 
again to 70 cents in 1830, at which last rate it remained 
till February, 1849, when coal was gradually tried, and the 
price fell to 60 cents. As it soon appeared that coal was 
the cheapest material — the rosin furnaces were removed, 
benches of retorts for coal being substituted, and the 
subsequent fall in price of the gas has been rapid and 
great, viz. : — 

Aug. 1849, . 50 cts. May 1850, . 35 cts. 

Nuv. 1849, . 40 cts. Jan. 1851, . 30 cts, 

and 30 cents is now the price. 

Although rosin is occasionally used, it was abandoned 
as the material in November, 1849, and the gas is now 
made wholly from English coal, two-thirds Cannel, and 
one-ihird Newcastle. 

Tlie following table shows the comparison between the 
Rosin Gas Works, and the actual Coal Gas Works : — 



49 



For Rosin. 

17 benches of 6 retorts each, . . . 102 retorts 
1 do. 10 do. . . . 10 " 

112 retorts 

In different parts of the city, there were 

gas-holders, ... .9 

Contents, . . 156,000 cubic feet. 

The works were then at the corner of Centre street and 
Hester. 

For Coal. 

The works are at Avenue A, East River, between 21st 
and 22d streets. 

They use . . .120 retorts. 

Gas-holders, . . .9 

Containing . 530,000 cubic feet. 

Within the last two years tlie works have been greatly- 
extended, on the most approved modern appliances and 
plan. About si.vty tniles of iron main-pipes are laid, and 
over 2000 public lamps are supplied in the district embraced 
by the Company of about 1000 acres — that is, all the city 
south of Canal and Grand streets. 

All the theatres, the principal hotels, and very many 
shops and private houses in this district are supplied with 
gas. 

There are some 200 men constantly employed in manu- 
facturing and distributing the gas, and the weekly amount 
of wages paid, is about ,f 2,000. 

MANHATTAN GAS LIGHT COMPANY. 

Chartered February 26th, 1830, capital $.500,000. In 
1847, the capital was increased to $1,000,000. This Com- 
4 



50 

pany siii)plies that portion of the city lying north of Grand 
street. The gas was originally produced from rosin, and 
was first delivered to the public on the the 15th of April, 
1835. In 1837, the gas was made from coal and rosin. 
In 1838, the use of rosin was discontinued, since which 
time the only material employed has been coal. All the 
coal is imported, and the proportions used are two-thirds 
Cannel, and one-third Newcastle. 

In 1835 the price charged for Gas was S7 per M. cubic feet. 
" 1837 " " " 6 " 

" 1838 " " " 4i " 

" 1839 " " " 4 " 

" 1851 " " " H " " 

" 1852 " " " is 3 " 

In 1838 the amount of Gas made was 13 Millions cubic feet. 
" 1841 " " " 16 

" 1846 " " " 37 

" 1851 " " " 140 

At the close of 1847 the total length of pipes laid, was 45 miles. 
" " 1851 " " " 112 " 

The original works were constructed under the direction 
of Timothy Dewey, an American Engineer, but alterations 
to adapt them to the nse of coal instead of rosin, were made 
on the suggestion of Thomas G. Barlow, an Engineer of 
reputation, who arrived from England shortly before the 
Company began the delivery of Gas. All the apparatus 
was imported. 

For several years this Company struggled hard to pre- 
serve its existence ; the portion of the city assigned to it, 
presented a very different appearance from what it does at 
this time, and the prejudice against the use of gas in pri- 
vate houses, confined the sale almost exclusively to the 
small shops in the few business thoroughfares which at 
that period were to be found up town. 

As repeated experiments, and the knowledge gained by 
experience, enabled the Company to improve the quality 
of the gas, its use in dwellings became more and more ex- 



51 

tended, and as the consumption increased, the price was 
reduced. 

AUhough the coal from which the gas is produced has 
to be imported, and aUhough the cost of labor and materials 
is such as to require double the capital that would be re- 
quired in England, yet gas-light in New- York is now the 
cheapest as well as the best light that can be used. Its 
cheapness, convenience, cleanliness and safety, have caused 
its introduction into almost every house that has been built 
within the last two years, and the probability is, that in a 
very few years, the use of gas, from its extreme low price, 
will become universal. 

The Manhattan Gas Light Company now supplies 

3104 Dwellings, 
2718 Stores and Work-shops, 
125 Churches, 
187 Public houses, 
14 School houses, 
9 Market houses, 
10 Police Station houses, 
3 Theatres, 
1 Metropolitan Hall, 
9 Hotels, 



Total, 6,180 Consumers. 

The Company also supplies gas for and lights 4,500 
street-lamps. From 200 to 300 men are employed, and the 
weekly amount paid for wages varies from 1,500 to 2,000 
dollars. 

But the crowning glory and surpassing achievement of 
the latter part of the half-century, is the Croton Aqueduct. 
For many years — dating back before the War of Independ- 
ence — projects were entertained and discussed for an ade- 
quate supply of water to this City ; and in 1774 Christo- 
pher CoUis actually constructed a reservoir somewhere 
between AntViony and Spring streets, near the present line 
of Broadway, into which water was pumped up from wells, 



52 

and for the expense of this work paper money was issued 
by the Corporation. Tiie supply of water, however, was 
insufficient, and the quahty not good ; but the occurrence 
of war put an end to all schemes for improving both quali- 
ty and supply. After the peace, and through successive 
periods up to the year 1835, scheme upon scheme was dis- 
cussed and dismissed — looking now to the waters of the 
Collect, then to the Bronx, and then to wells, of which the 
contents were to be raised by mechanism to a height that 
would permit their distribution through the streets and into 
houses. In the year 1802 the Manhattan Company was 
incorporated, for the professed purpose of furnishing to the 
City pure and wholesome water ; and although the result 
proved that to be chiefly a cover to the obtaining of perpet- 
ual and irrevocable banking privileges, the Company did 
nevertheless undertake to furnish water, and from their 
wells, dug between Chambers and Cross streets, raised the 
water into a reservoir, whence it was distributed through 
wooden pipes to various parts of the town. The quantity, 
however, was inconsiderable, and the preference was gene- 
ral for the water of wells and pumps. Many of the latter 
are remembered, doubtless, by all who hear me — standing 
sometimes on the edge of the sidewalks, sometimes in the 
centre of our most frequented streets. A few of these ob- 
solete memorials of a past age still survive, and possibly 
are still relied upon by old people, who find their brackish 
fluid — such is the force of custom — preferable to the pure 
and limpid Croton. 

But in 1835, at the Spring Election, it was put to the 
vote of this City — Water or No Water — and the decision 
to be made in view of the fact that the plan in contempla- 
tion looked to nothing short of bringing the Croton River 
into our streets, at an expense of many millions of dollars, 
to be raised by loan, of which the principal and interest 
were to be paid by taxation. The result was for Water 
and the Taxation necessary to bring it, 17,330 votes ; 



53 

against it, 5,963, It \vonld not be a fair representation of 
this topic, if I did not add here, as among the proofs 
which, to an honest searcher, abound in the history of our 
City, that the wealth of its citizens is always ready, cheer- 
fully and largely, to contribute to the common welfare — 
that the Noes on this occasion were from Wards which paid 
the smallest amount of taxation, while the heavily taxed 
Wards, in other words, the Wards in which riches most 
abounded, voted, almost unanimously, Yes. In three 
Wards only, IXth, Xth, and Xlllth, the noes preponder- 
ated ; in the Xlth the vote was nearly balanced — Yes 880 ; 
No 873. In the 1st Ward the vote was. Yes 1,417 ; No 27 ! 
Yet in that year the taxes collected from 1st Ward were 
$246,181, while those from the three negative Wards were : 

IXth Ward .... $33,608 

Xth Ward . . . 26,834 

XlllthWard .... 15,847 



Total .... S76,289 

Adding the balanced Xlth Ward . 45,060 



121,349 



Balance . . , . . $124,832 

So that the 1st Ward alone paid more than twice the tax, 
and would, therefore, be in the same proportion liable for 
future assessments for the cost of the Aqueduct, as the three 
negative Wards and the one balanced Ward. 

This view is strengthened by the additional fact, that 
the whole tax for the year 1836 produced $965,602 ; of 
which the four dissenting, or indifferent Wards, above enu- 
merated, paid only $121,349, or about one-eighth. 

I add, as a matter within my personal knowledge, that 
upon the suggestion, that as no provision was made in the 
ordinance of the Corporation for submitting the question to 
the people, for the supply of tickets — usually provided in 
political elections by the candidates or their party — there 



54 

might be danger that the vote would be disregarded, a few 
gentlemen of property subscribed a fund of several hun- 
dred dollars, to defray the expense of printing tickets and 
of employing persons at each poll to distribute them. 

The vote being affirmative, the noble enterprise was at 
once undeVtaken, and in seven years it was completed in a 
manner so thorough and substantial, that after ages will 
bless the liberality and foresight of the generation which 
authorized the Aqueduct, and the skill and completeness 
with which it is constructed. Neither time nor fitness will 
permit any detail as to this structure. It must suffice to 
state the amount of its daily blessings, so far as mere fig- 
ures can approximate thereto; the daily current poured 
into our streets and houses by the Croton from the Distrib- 
uting Reservoir measures 30,000,000 gallons, and on Sat- 
urday, when, as the last Report of the Board says, " zealous 
liousewifery puts every street-washer in requisition (wheth- 
er necessary or not)" — ten millions of gallons more, or forty 
million gallons in all are used, ox xdX\\QX misused — wickedly 
misused, I am almost tempted to say, by a population 
(within the water district) of not more than 430,000 per- 
sons, or 90 gallons ! — (think of it) 90 gallons to each indi- 
vidual. The whole supply of the City of London, with a 
population of two millions, does not exceed 40,000,000 gal- 
lons. Is it not, then, a duty — a moral obligation, I will call 
it, of every good citizen to prevent, as far as in him lies, 
the enormous and shameful waste which this bare state- 
ment of the quantity thrown daily into our City so clearly 
establishes.* This lavish distribution of water is accom- 

* A striking illustration of this immoral waste of one of the chief neces- 
saries of life, is furnished in the following extract, from the Report of the 
Croton A(iueduct Department, made to the Common Council since this lec- 
ture was delivered : 

'•There are in this citj' a great number of small jets with basins be- 
neath, on the counters of groceries, and bar-rooms, confectioneries and 
bakeries. * * * * Tliese, viewed separately, seem trifling afiairs, 
and incapable of producing any marked ctfect upon the general supply, but 

m 



55 

plished through a subterranean net-work of iron pipes, of 
which the entire length exceeds two hundred miles ; in 
other words, if laid in one line, they would reach from the 
Reservoir to Boston. 

I cannot leave this subject without quoting here the 
emphatic warning — in which each one of us is personally 
interested, not only for his daily comfort, but for his se- 
curity from fire — given in the latest Report of the Croton 
Aqueduct Board, " That the last drop of water which the 
works, in their present state, can supply, is iiorv daily de- 
livered in the City — a supply more than equal to any and 
all the legitimate wants of a million and a half of people." 
Yet this enormous supply is wasted by less than half a 
million. It may be well to add, however, that the actual 
supply is limited by the intervention of the High Bridge — 
across which only two mains, of 36 inches, are now laid. 
By substituting for them more or larger mains, the quantity 
may be very largely increased ; for " the reserve in the 
Croton River," as the Commissioners state, " and the nu- 
merous lakes in which it has its sources, subject to future 

under the pressure of a head of more thau 100 feet, which in manj' cases 
is the fact, a small orifice will discharge a prodigious quantity of water in 
tlie course of a year." 

The Board accordingly determined to exact rent for those jets, which 
produced great grumbling, as though it were a right thus to waste the 
water. " In one case "' continues the Report, " where a party was charged 
nine dollars for a jet upon his counter, he paid it with such strong ex- 
pressions of the imposition practised upon him, as induced the writer to 
visit the place and gauge the water actually flowing from it. It was found 
to discharge half a pint every 10 seconds, and as it was admitted that the 
flow continued throughout the year, it follows that o?ie hundred and nimhj- 
sevcn thousand one hundred gallons annually are thus wasted — equal to fur- 
nishing a family of 20 persons each with 27 gallons of water daily for the 
whole period. Had the rate fixed by ordinance, of 3J cts. for 100 gallons, 
been charged in this case, as it ought to have been, the amount collected 
would have been $68 99 instead of $9." 

The Report assumes it to be within the truth to say that there are in the 
City 500 such jets, each discharging as much water, making an annual waste 
from this source alone of one hundred million gallons. 



56 

control, would be enough for a larger city than any now 
on the globe." 

Another series of great works also, most important to 
the heaUh and conducive to the comfort of the City, is more 
recent than the construction of the Aqueduct, and is still 
in progress — the system of underground draining through 
sewers. The Bureau of Sewers and Drains is very properly 
attached to the Croton Aqueduct Department. The first 
sewer in our City of any extent, was that in Canal street 
But, laid down as an isolated work, and without the con- 
sideration that should have preceded it, it is, as compared 
with those since constructed, an inferior work. Still it an- 
swers its purpose, though at greater cost for clearing out 
frequently than should be. But the unskilfulness of its 
construction, and the inconvenience resulting therefrom, 
caused a prejudice against sewers, which it required much 
time and much exertion to overcome, and which, perhaps,but 
for the necessity of the case, would not have been overcome. 
By some strange oversight, this sewer was constructed 
without the simple contrivance of air-traps — a curve, in the 
manner of the syphon, somewhere in the culvert, in which 
a column of water, always standing, prevents the upward 
escape of the offensive odor from the sewer. For the lack of 
this, the dwellers on and around Canal street were exposed 
to most fetid smells, rising through the culverts into the 
upper air, and great was the outcry, and great the conse- 
quent depreciation of property. Yet for a time, although 
sewers properly constructed and furnished Avith these traps 
had long existed on the flat plain occupied by Philadelphia, 
the authorities of our City could not be made to under- 
stand the cause, or to seek for a remedy which laid at their 
very door. Happily, the growth of the City and its natu- 
ral conformation compelled a resort to sewers elsewhere, 
and then Science and Experience were brought into play to 
do their perfect work, and so far as could be done to cure 
the defects in the Canal street work. The introduction there 
of the air-traps has nearly removed the former nuisance 



57 

The form of the island is that of a turtle's back, sloping 
from the centre to each side, and naturally shedding the 
water. Hence, in the lower part of the City, where the 
tongue of land is narrow, and the distance from the centre 
to the river short, the shed of the rain and other water in 
the streets is natural and easy on the surface to each river. 
But as the City advanced northward, and without rising 
in level at the centre, became much broader at the sides, 
the natural flow of water over the surface could no longer 
be resorted to. The level of the ground at Trinity Church 
and at Union Square above tide-water is the same— about 
forty-five feet. But while that difference of level was 
quite sufficient at Trinity Church to drain the water along 
the short lines of Rector and Wall streets, to the rivers, it be- 
came quite another thing at Union Square, where the river 
is nearly a mile distant on either hand, and the intervening 
ground very irregular. 

The State of New- York had, with a wise forecast of 
its and our great future, as early as 1807, appointed three 
Commissioners to lay out the City of New- York into streets 
and squares. These Commissioners were De Witt Clinton, 
Gouverneur Morris, and Jno. Rutherford. Josiah Randall, 
Jr., was their Engineer and Surveyor. Their report was made 
in 1811, and accepted by the Corporation. That report, 
accompanied with a map, laid out the whole City in noble 
avenues and spacious streets, numbered up to One Hun- 
dred and Seventy-sixth street, and designated, as to their 
corners, by durable marble monuments, firmly fixed in the 
ground. These Commissioners had no authority to alter 
or regulate the level of the future avenues and streets, but 
simply to run and mark the lines by permanent monu- 
ments ; and to that magnificent plan we owe it that there 
are no lanes nor alleys in the new City, but that twelve 
noble avenues each 100 feet wide, running parallel and 
in the direction of the island, give access to the City, and 
that these are cut at right angles by numerous streets, every 



68 

tenth one of which is also a hundred feet wide, and the 
narrow streets sixty feet in width, or ten feet wider than 
the boast of Philadelphia — Chestnut street. 

Happily, we say, this plan was adopted, for but for it 
most of the region lying east of the Bowery, including the 
Stuyvesant Farm, and again around Union Square, would 
have been cut up into most unsightly curves and gores. 
The main avenue of the old Dutch City was the Bowerie. 
It Avas called the Old Boston Road — within the memory of 
many living — and the lines of the farms and lands circum- 
jacent were all run in reference to it as a base. Its course 
was crooked ; hence, when the new streets laid down 
upon the Commissioners' map came to be traced out, it 
was found that they would often make curious work with 
the old lines, and leave here and there some most oddly 
shaped fragments. Either Mr. Gouverneur Morris, a man 
of fine fancy, as well as of profound attainments, or the 
State Surveyor, Mr. Simeon De Witt, whose odd fancy scat- 
tered over our State iu such inimitable confusion, and puz- 
zling juxtaposition — Romes, Palmyras, Uticas, and Atticas, 
and who mingled up the Brutuses and Pompeys, with On- 
ondagas and Oneidas — either Mr. Morris or Mr. De Witt, 
in referring to this interference of the new lines with the 
old, and to the fragmentary parcels of lots that would be 
thereby carved out, spoke of these lots by an allowable fig- 
ure — as " the Children of Necessity." At a subsequent pe- 
riod, when the advance of population rendered it desirable 
to reduce these fragments to form and order, some literal 
matter-of-fact people petitioned the Legislature for an act 
to consolidate and re-form these " Children of Necessity," 
and the Legislature, whose forte lies not in fancy, taking 
the expression as legally descriptive of the objects referred 
to, actually passed a law io\ discontinuing these " Children 
of JSecessity''' — and great were the beautifying conse- 
quences of that law. 

Broadway and the Bowery, the two great thoroughfares 



69 

of the City, may be said to start from f)ne common trunk 
below the Park — and after, in their Ibng lines, traversing, 
respectively, such different scenes, and witnessing modes of 
life so diverse, they come together at Union Place, as origi- 
nally called, from that circumstance, and now Union 
Square. This square — beautiful, spacious and ornamental 
as it now is — is made up almost wholly of these " Children 
of Necessity." 

The old Potters' Field, together with a portion of the 
"Ludlow Farm," through the efforts of Mr. A. S. Pell, a 
man of enlarged views and active spirit — had been thrown 
in the year 1827 into that spacious area, now known as 
Washington Square. 

VAbout 1831 the City seemed to take a start northward, 
and for the first time improvements by blocks of houses, 
uniformly built, beyond the then abodes, were introduced 
To Mr. J. Green Pearson, who built up Le Roy Place ori 
both sides with houses of some uniformity in exterior, and 
some pretension to architectural proportion, the praise is 
due of being first in this path. Mr. Seth Geer, in like 
manner, constructed the handsome colonnade row in La- 
fayette Place, and Mr. Thos. E. Davis, boldly advancing 
into the domain of the martial Stuyvesant, old " Hard-kop- 
pig Piet," actually commenced digging down hills and fill- 
ing up valleys — under the very eye of the grim old war- 
rior, as his likeness still hung on the walls of the old ances- 
tral house — and planted St. Mark's Place with its brick 
houses and paved street, in the heart of his rural home- 
stead, his blooming Bowerie. The large extent of salt 
meadow belonging to that estate, was literally on the point 
of confiscation, and all the other low land similarly situat- 
ed, when the policy of sewers to pass off the water under 
ground was introduced, instead of persevering in the origi- 
nal plan of the Corporation to fill up the grounds to the 
level requisite to pass it off over the surface. The contest 
in behalf of the sewers was long and earnest. Prejudice, 



CO 

arising from the unskilfully made Canal street sewer, \vas 
zealously appealed to ; interest, in the employment which 
the removing of the millions of loads of earth requisite for 
the filling in, would atlord to laborers and cartmen, was 
strongly pressed ; but good sense, and indeed common jus- 
tice finally prevailed— for if the high filling had been in- 
sisted on, the low grounds ceased to have any value as pro- 
perty. Within twenty years, and before the point was de- 
cided, lots on the Salt Meadow were sold at $^25 each, 
which now would command as many hundreds. Happily, 
the sewers carried the day. The first consequence was, 
that the general level of the projected streets could be 
lowered without injury, and the land was so completely re- 
claimed by the sewers as to be equal in value almost to 
the upland ; and we now see in the very heart of the Salt 
Meadow, Tompkins Square, the largest as well as one of 
the most tasteful in the City, containing some 15 or 16 
acres, and surrounded by houses and churches alike sub- 
stantial and costly. The cost of the land taken for that 
square, in 1834, was $89,000. From that day the policy 
of sewers was permanently adopted, and our streets are 
now pierced by some 83 miles of these subterranean gal- 
leries which carry ofl' to the rivers without trouble or in- 
convenience to the citizen, but on the contrary, to his in- 
finite accommodation, all the water of houses, baths, streets, 
&,c., and this at an annual cost not exceeding $11(3 per mile 
for all charges of repairing, cleaning, and keeping in order. 
Another citizen who has devoted rare intelligence, pre- 
cious years, and large sums of money to the advancement, 
embellishment, and solid progress of the City, is Samuel 
B. Ruggles. In 1831, he became possessed of a portion of 
the old Duane Farm. This farm had a front of about 400 
feet on the Bowery road, and ran thence easterly almost to 
the river, with some nplnnd, but much morass, overgrown 
with cat-tails, and through which wandered a stream known 
as the Crumme-Vly, or Winding Creek. The heirs, five in 



61 

number, estimating the value of the property according to 
its frontage on the Bowery, divided the farm by tliat front, 
400 feet, into five equal parcels, and thus constituted nar- 
row strips of land half a mile, nearly, long, and 80 feet 
wide. One of these fifths having been acquired by Mr. 
Ruggles in the year 1831, he forthwith set himself at work 
to make it available. Between him and the actual City was 
the Bowery Hill, 20 feet above the level — behind him mo- 
rass. It was clear that the latter was of little value with- 
out the former. After incredible difliculties, he succeeded 
in obtaining both the Bowery Hill and the morass, cover- 
ing together more than fifty acres, and very soon tumbled 
the one into the other to the amount of some three millions 
of loads, at a cost of $180,000 — and squaring the lines as 
he went along, and regulating the lots, he planted on the 
edge of the morass, in December 1831, Gramercy Park, 
by gratuitously giving the whole of the 66 lots it comprises 
— now worth two hundred thousand dollars — and attach- 
ing to the grant a condition that ten dollars a lot should be 
anually paid forever by the residents around the square, as 
a fund out of which to plant, preserve, and adorn it. Dis- 
daining, too, the personal vanity of entailing his own name 
upon this creation of his own energy and property, he pre- 
served the name by which the old Duane estate was known, 
the Gramercy Seat — corrupted, probably, from the Crook- 
ed Creek, or Crumme-Vly, which meandered through its 
meadow. 

Next came, in 1833, Union Square, made up chiefly of 
those '• Children of Necessity " to which allusion has here- 
tofore been made, fragmentary lots, which, after much 
trouble and labor on the part of Mr. Ruggles and others, 
and with the aid of the Legislature, were reduced to the 
sightly and admirable square, with its wide open area of 
streets around, which we all now admire. The assess- 
ment for lands for this square was .$110,000, and it was 
imposed upon lots as for as Gramercy Park, of which 



62 

very many belonged to Mr. Ruggles, who thus contributed 
largely in money as well as personal exertions to this em- 
bellishment of the City. In walking, upon one occasion, 
round this square with Rev. Dr. Hawks, Mr, Ruggles was 
expatiating upon the value, for all time, of such squares in 
a gieat city. "Come what will," said he, "our open 
squares will remain forever imperishable. Buildings, tow- 
ers, palaces, may moulder and crumble beneath the touch 
of Time ; but space — free, glorious, open space — will re- 
main to bless the City forever !" " And do you not perceive 
the reason?" was the prompt return of Dr. Hawks, "Man 
makes buildings, but God makes space," thus stamping, as 
it were, the signet of the Almighty on the labors of Mr. R. 
to perpetuate to his fellow-citizens, for all time to come, 
Heaven's boon of free air and open space. Mr. Ruggles 
also cut through his own property, two wide streets, paral- 
lel with and between the Third and Fourth Avenues, and 
being allowed by the Corporation to name them, he again 
avoided the temptation of personal feeling, and called the 
one Irving Place, after our admirable fellow-townsman, 
whose gentle and genial humor and fine literary taste and 
talents have illustrated our City and nation — the other he 
named, with the just pride of a New-England man, Lex- 
ington Avenue, after that battle field where the first blood 
was shed for independence. 

Being now largely interested in real estate, and accus- 
tomed to embrace a, wide range in his views of the causes 
which accelerate the growth and add to the prosperity of 
cities, he was not long in perceiving that a new impulse, 
analogous in character to that imparted by the Erie Canal, 
Avas needed to determine the onward movement of our 
City. He accordingly early embraced and warmly advo- 
cated the project of a railroad througli the southern tier of 
counties to Lake Erie. The scheme was gigantic, and the 
physical obstacles to its success not less so ; but Mr. Rug- 
gles is of that temper of mind which cannot readily be 



63 

discouraged, and he persevered. He subscribed largely to 
the stock of the Company, became one of its most active 
Directors, and in company with James G. King, the then 
President of the road, was present at tlie putting of the 
first spade into the ground for the commencement of the 
work, and emptied on the future track, now vexed by in- 
cessant trains, the first wheel-barrow load of earth, on 5th 
Nov. 1835. Being at that time myself the editor of a news- 
paper, I was cognizant of the untiring efforts of Mr. Rug- 
gles, by his pen, his purse, and his personal exertions, to 
advance the interests of this new enterprise, and to arouse 
to it the attention of all classes of our citizens ; for such is 
the fortunate solidarity (a good word recently introduced 
into our common vocabulary) of all classes under our free 
and equal institutions, and in our industrious community, 
that every undertaking which benefits any one class, 
must benefit all. The enterprise was sustained, and al- 
though long delayed and finally executed by other hands, 
it should not be forgotten now, in the prosperous days of 
this magnificent and beneficent work — hardly less valuable 
as a political bond connecting us indissolubly with the 
great West, than as a broad highway along which pass 
both men and the produce of man's industry, in countless 
numbers and of unreckoned value, with great speed and 
great economy — it should not be forgotten, I repeat, now, 
when the skies are bright and the future is certain, who, in 
the dark morning — far-seeing and hard-working — were the 
friends of the enterprise. 

Still in conformity with his settled opinion, that nothing 
could more surely conduce to the prosperity of the City 
than a wise application, alike of individual and the public 
wealth and effort, to promote well-considered public im- 
provements, Mr. R. acceded to the urgent desire of his 
friends to be a candidate for the Assembly. He was elect- 
ed, and placed at the head of the Committee of Ways and 
Means, and in that capacity made the famous Report of 



64 

1838, on the value and future productiveness of the Canals, 
on the necessity of their enlargement, and on the expedi- 
ency of still farther extending the system. He was in ad- 
vance of his time, and yet time has more than confirmed 
all his estimates and sanctioned all his views ; and that 
Report, which the timid, the incredulous and the malicious 
stigmatized in its day, according to the idiosyncrasies of 
each, as rash, impracticable and absurdly visionary, is now 
the enduring record of far-sighted sagacity, well-stated pre- 
mises, and irresistible conclusions. 

Nor were his efforts to bring into speedy and vigorous 
action these wonder-working engines of public prosperity, 
confined to the legislative hall, the closet, or the City. Leav- 
ing behind him the property which for years he had been 
anxiously and arduously moulding into shape, he accepted 
the post of Canal Commissioner of the State, and in that 
more extended field, for several years and through the dark- 
est period of the commercial revulsion succeeding 1836, 
urged forward toward completion — and with untiring en- 
ergy — those great channels of internal commerce, which 
are now pouring such copious and ever-swelling streams 
of wealth into New- York, their common centre. 

Bat while thus in the public service, his own private 
interests severely suffered. Yet, with temptation constant- 
ly besetting him to let out piecemeal and for mere suburban 
pursuits and for inferior buildings, the large real estate he 
possessed around Union Square and Gramercy Park, incum- 
bered as it was by heavy debt, he adhered to his original 
purpose, so far as he could effect it, to render that one of 
the most desirable and beautiful parts of the City. He 
coveted the feeling of that statesman of old, who was able 
to say, that he had found his city of wood and left it of mar- 
ble. He would not rehnquish his generous but self-sacri- 
ficing plan. He persevered, and for the public he triumphed 
— and the fine squares and noble streets of the neighborhood 
we have referred to remain, and will remain, while he, the 



65 

early, liberal and far-seeing projector of the whole, whose 
life-long labors had virtually called it into being — borne 
down at last by the crushing and fatally accumulating bur- 
dens of his twenty years' struggle — but cheerfully surren- 
dering, without stint or limit, and to the last dollar, in pay- 
ment of his obligations, the estate so justly earned, has lost 
all, save that which leaves him rich indeed, the respect, 
confidence and affection of his friends, the resolute and self- 
sustaining spirit which in the end is sure to conquer misfor- 
tune, and the just pride that for the city of his residence, for 
his country, and for the future he has not labored nor suf- 
fered in vain. 

I fear I may have seemed to encroach on your time and 
attention in giving so much extent and prominence to the 
acts of a single individual. But he is my friend. Fortune 
has dealt hardly with him, and as I know his worth and 
the sacrifices he has made for our City, I could not resist 
this opportunity, which a review of the growth of the City 
so naturally presents, of bearing my testimony to the name, 
services and character of Samuel B. Ruggles as a public 
benefactor. 

Although restrained by the exigencies of time and place 
in delivering this address, from quoting, as I desired to do, 
from Mr. Ruggles's famous Report of '38, some of its strik- 
ing passages, I will not deny myself the pleasure, if that 
address is to be published in a form somewhat more per- 
manent than that of a newspaper, to give these extracts. 

Alter a thorough examination of the ability of the State 
to make the proposed enlargement of the Canal, and an 
estimate, which tmie has shown to be below rather than 
above the reality of the future productiveness of the Canal 
Mr. Ruggles, speaking in the name of the Committee, thus 
concludes : — 

" They will not attempt to measure the consequences 
which the completion of a great and harmonious system 
of intercommunication, extending into the uttermost recesses 
5 



66 

of the interior, and concentrating within our borders the 
trade of the most populous portion of the continent, will 
produce, in augmenting the aggregate riches of our State ; 
— in covering its surface with opulent cities ; — in swelling 
its commercial marine ; — in securing its political suprema- 
cy ; and in enlarging, in all respects, its prosperity, power, 
and glory. Nor will they seek to compute the pecuniary 
results which this vast and ever increasing stream of in- 
land trade, flowing through our territory for all future time, 
will produce in augmenting the wealth of its commercial 
metropolis. The history of Venice, in its palmiest days, 
stretching her long line of islands and colonies far into the 
East, and controlling by her position the commerce of Asia, 
presents but a feeble picture of the splendor and riches 
which our own great mart must eventually attain. 
*■******# 

" Least of all will they attempt to compute the pecuniary 
consequences of these great arteries of trade, in cementing 
and preserving the union of these free and flourishing re- 
publics. It is not for New- York, or her sons, to ' calculate 
the value* of that sacred bond. But if we would catch a 
glimpse, however imperfect, of the gigantic stake which is 
depending on our prudence and patriotism — if we would 
count the cost of ruined cities, and desolate fields, of our 
lakes and rivers, obstructed by fleets and fortresses in war, 
and by commercial restrictions still more destructive in 
peace, we may contrast Europe as it is, convulsed by cen- 
turies of strife, and broken into jarring, disunited, and dis- 
cordant communities, with Europe, as it would have been, 
had its whole population been united like ours, at the very 
origin of their governments, under one common law, speak- 
ing one common language, and bound by one common 
constitution." 

I must add to the above quotation, one other, from a 
vindication published by Mr. Ruggles in 1849, of the 



67 

Canal policy recommended by him in 1838. This extract 
shows at once the lofty and patriotic views with which Mr. 
R. looks at these great enterprises, while exhibiting at a 
glance, and by a most striking comparison with the Rhine, 
the priceless value of our Canals : 

" The Canals are a noble property, and deserve good care 
and attention. They ought to be in friendly hands. With 
the moderate means the Constitution has left to our present 
efficient and faithful officers, the locks of the Erie Canal 
may be finished and opened for the reception of the en- 
larged boats by the spring of 1851. But the progress of 
the main work must necessarily be slow and painfully pro- 
tracted; and exert whatever effort we may, the great and 
final measure of deepening the channel and realizing its 
largest benefits, can hardly be finished in time to enable 
some of us, upon whom the shadows of evening are steal- 
ing, to participate in the joyful emotions which an achieve- 
ment so important would naturally enkindle. But the 
smaller gratification we may yet enjoy, unless, indeed, a 
Board of hostile incumbents, foreign to the interests, and 
distrustful of the value of the noble work, shall again ob- 
tain its control, and, on a smaller scale, re-enact the scenes 
of 1842. 

'•Its rich revenues, its teeming commerce, entitle it to 
better, to more kindly care. The stupendous mass of pro- 
ducts floating on the Canals of which it is the main and 
vital artery, reached in the last season of navigation, the 
enormous amount of 2,736,230 tons, exceeding by eleven 
hundred thousand tons, the amount transported in 1843 ; 
while the 'products of the forest,' VN^hich its enemies in 
1844 declared had 'diminished,' actually increased in five 
years from six hundred and eighty-seven thousand tons, to 
one million and eighty-six thousand. 

" The amount paid upon the Canal in 1848, for tolls and 
freight, was five millions eight hundred thousand dollars, 
and in the active season of 1847, eight millions four hun- 
dred thousand dollars. 



68 

"As an avenue of trade, it now all but outstrips every 
channel of commerce, natm-al or artificial, in the New 
World or the Old. The transportation on the great river 
Rhitie, flowing more than 500 miles through the heart of 
Europe, furnishing a safe and commodious outlet for many- 
millions of inhabitants,— its navigation wisely and sedu- 
lously improved by the seven Sovereign Powers adjacent to 
its banks,— is exceeded by that of the Erie Canal nearly 
threefold. 

'= Nor is its enormous activity impaired, to any sensible 
extent, by the long line of railroads lying on its margin, 
and enjoying the full benefit of the winter monopoly. The 
descending cargoes passing over the railroads in the whole 
of the year 1848, were but 29,999 tons, while in the seven 
months of navigation of the same season, the Canal brought 
down eleven hundred and eighty thousand tons to tide- 
water. 

" The pecuniary amount of the Canal commerce, which 
in 1843 had reached seventy-six millions, ascended in 1848 
to one hundred and forty millions of dollars; and yet the 
representatives of the people of New-York, in framing its 
organic law, were assured, and some were weak enough to 
believe it, that the revenues had reached their culminating 
point, or were fas: approaching it. 

" For one, the writer of this hasty sketch has ventured 
to believe, and yet continues to believe, that an immense 
interior region of unequalled fertility, and truly imperial 
extent, — the destined centre of American population, com- 
merce and power, — as yet but in the early morning of its 
(Jays, — lies just beyond our western borders, and plainly 
within our reach,— and that it does not fall within the 
narrow ken of the men of the present hour, fully to 
encompass the vast ext nt of its future wealth and 
greatness. 

"To connect the ocean with a region thus wide spread 
and magnificent, by commodiouSj constant, and ample 



69 

means of intercourse,— to bind in bonds of mutual and 
ever-enduring interest and affection, the far distant por- 
tions of our favored land, — to knit together, for coming 
ages, the members of our national Union, — he has always 
believed, and yet believes to be the bounden duty of the 
government of this State." * * * » 

With these extracts I leave it to the general judgment, 
if Mr. Ruggles be not rightly characterized as a man of 
large and sagacious views and most enlightened patriotism. 
Thus far I have only spoken of successful changes. But 
amid much prosperity we have not been exempt from seri- 
ous and sweeping calamities — embargoes, non-intercourse, 
war, yellow fever, cholera, destructive fires — each in its 
turn disastrous, yet each soon effaced almost from memory 
by the swelling tide of prosperity that followed. 

The embargo and non-intercourse were, as the judg- 
ment of history must now pronounce, I think, most unwise, 
as they were most calamitous and oppressive measures. 
To see, as I well remember to have seen, this great seaport 
suddenly struck with paralysis — its wharves silent, the 
grass literally growing upon them — the multitudinous 
branches of industry connected with commerce and naviga- 
tion abandoned — the sailmaker, the blockmaker, the rope- 
maker, the carman, the rigger, the blacksmith, the worker 
in copper, the calker, the stevedore, the sailor, cut off from 
all employment— the forests of masts motionless, and the 
revenue cutter and the custom-house boats the only moving 
crafts upon our matchless bay, saving a few coasters — this 
was an experiment upon the fortunes and the law-abiding 
character of our citizens fearful to attempt, and wicked to 
persevere in, as it was persevered in. For more than a 
year and a quarter, from December, 1807, to March 1809, 
New- York, as a commercial city, lay dead, and yet, let it 
be added, to ^he eternal honor of New- York, in most unim- 
peachable testimony of her loyalty to the Union, of her 
obedience to law — to a law that was slaying her— that no 



70 

attempt was made, no pretence ever set up, at imlUjication ; 
though her sufferings were grievous, and though thousands 
able to work, wilHng to work, and only prevented from 
workhig by what seemed an arbitrary and, to very many, 
an unconstitutional exercise of the federal power — for the 
embargo, as imposed, was unlimited in point of time — yet 
did they not seek by violence either to overthrow the law 
or the constitution. If there were no other page in the his- 
tory of our City than that which records its endurance under 
such a trial and those of a subsequent non-intercourse, it 
might well be claimed, that her fidelity to the Union, to the 
constitution, and to the laws made under it, is alike beyond 
question or parallel. Bat many are the pages in her history 
which present her to the whole country as always faithful, 
always loyal, always self-sacrificing. It is therefore, I con- 
fess, not without some emotions of indignation, in recollect- 
ing this remarkable characteristic of all her days, that I have 
seen self-constituted Union Committees undertaking to in- 
dorse to the republic the fidelity of New- York to the Union ! — 
a work of supererogation surely, in any men ! a work that I 
will not characterize by its fitting epithet, on the part of 
men of whom not one in ten probably knew the City in the 
days of her commercial agony — days which, indeed, tried 
men's souls, and proved to the world the fidelity and pa- 
triotism of the New- York merchants, the New- York me- 
chanics, and of the New-Yorkers of all classes and pursuits, 
in 1808-9-10. The embargo was, indeed, reinoved in 
March, 1809, as to all countries but Great Britain and France. 
With these two countries a strict non-intercourse was substi- 
tuted for the embargo, and the cruisers of England, and her 
orders in council, and the decrees of Napoleon of Berlin, 
Milan, &.C., and the conjoint robbery of the prize courts of 
both countries, rendered such commerce as was not prohib- 
ited by our own laws most hazardous. 

Again, in April, 1812, another embargo, limited this time 
to 90 days, was laid, to be followed in the month of June 
by the Declaration of War against England ; and this war, 



71 

by reason of nearly three years' alternate embargo or non- 
intercourse which preceded it, found us unprepared with 
ahnost every thing essential to its vigorous prosecution, ex- 
cept brave hearts and willing arms ; for then manufactures 
were all but unknown to us. 

The City was at that time undefended by any perma- 
nent system of fortifications at or below the Narrows, or on 
the side of the Sound. Now the works of Fort Schuyler, 
at Throg's Neck, which effectually shut out any attack by 
the way of the Sound, and Forts Hamilton and Lafayette 
at the Narrows, on the Long Island side, water and upland 
batteries at Staten Island, Fort Wood at Bedlow's Island, 
and the works at Governor's Island, would render any at- 
tack upon the city, even by a very powerful fleet, most 
hazardous. But, in 1812, all was open, so far as the de- 
fences provided by the general government were concerned ; 
half a dozen frigates might have burned the city, or laid it 
under contribution. 

The City, however, evinced no fear nor backwardness 
to breast the shock of war. Temporary works were thrown 
up at the: Battery, and on the heights of Long Island, and 
at Harlem, to guard against any land attack, and men of all 
ages and all professions turned out and labored as volun- 
teers in digging and constructing these works. 

The whole army was employed on the frontiers, and 
this metropolis was left to the care of her own population 
and of the militia of the neighboring counties ; there were 
reviewed in our streets, by Governor Tompkins, who was 
Commander-in-Chief, about the close of the campaign in 
1814, more than 23,000 men, of whom only 500 were regu- 
lars — the rest were militia well armed, well drilled, for the 
most part, and reliable for defence. It was a glorious line, 
extending from the Battery np to Sandy-lane, and warmly 
did that patriot chief, Daniel D. Tompkins, feel the pride of 
that hour, when his native State was wholly intrusted to 
his keeping, and to that of its own sons ; and there stood 



72 

before him, ready to follow him to the death, so goodly an 
array of its citizen soldiery. Happily their services n the 
red field were not called for, and Peace soon came to heal 
the disasters and dry up the tears of War, and relaunch our 
country on its prosperous career of peaceful and all-pervad- 
ing commerce. 

The immense impulse with which the country — now 
absolutely bare, by reason of the war and the antecedent 
interruption of commerce — rushed forth to buy and to sell, 
To export and to import, inevitably brought a collapse, which 
those who remember 1818-19, will not have forgotten. In 
1823 came back, the first time for many years, the yellow 
fever, and business was partially suspended, and the places 
of business changed. The Banks and Custom-House were 
removed to Greenwich Village, and I used daily to ride on 
horseback from the corner of Bleecker street, over open com- 
mons, to the Custom-House located at Greenwich. The 
streets below the Park were cut off by a high board fence, 
running from river to river. Intercourse with the infected 
district was forbidden, and the residents therein, who did 
not voluntarily withdraw, were forcibly removed from the 
district by order of the Board of Health. I remember, one 
fine summer afternoon, sailing from Hellgate in a small 
boat, past -the whole east front, and round the Battery, past 
the west front of the City, within the infected district, with- 
out seeing on the wharves, or up the long line of streets 
that run to the river, a single human being, or any sign of 
life. But this scourge passed, and the effects of over- 
trading, and those of the pestilence, soon disappeared be- 
fore the constantly advancing prosperity and population of 
the City. The completion of the Canal, to which refer- 
ence has already been made, poured wealth of every sort 
into our streets, and not only repaired losses but created 
new riches. 

The next great physical scom-ge that fell upon us was 
the first Cholera of 1832, when panic did the work of 



73 

death almost as surely as the fell disease. Never within 
my knowledge of her was New- York so "frighted from her 
propriety." The destroyer was indeed formidable; and rem- 
edies were unknown. The very n)ysteriousness of its 
origin, of its approach, of its attack, added to the terror ; 
and sedate and even unselfish men lost or seemed to lose 
their senses. 

It is always to be recorded to the honor of that profes- 
sion which, however much men may jest about it when in 
health, the sick man flees to with implicit confidence— the 
Medical Profession — that they, with few exceptions, stood 
to their posts — the post of danger as of duty — and that 
whether in hospitals, in hovels, or in stately mansions, 
these faithful men were ready at every summons. One 
other class, too, should be mentioned with like honor — the 
Clergy — who, with rare exceptions, remained to soothe, 
where it might be the last agonies of the dying, and at any 
rate to consign the dead with decent rites to the bosom of the 
common mother. I shall never forget the impression on my 
own mind of a solitary walk — literally solitary— during the 
height of the distemper, from Wall street, where was my of- 
fice, to Houston street, where was my residence, along 
Broadway at mid-day, without encountering a dozen hu- 
man beings.* 

The fire of the night of 16lh of December, 1835, came 
next with its desolation ; and fearful indeed was that night 
of cold and conflagration ; but who does not remember and 
still admire the courage, the constancy, the indomitable 

*I must be permitted to particularize two individuals, one of each pro- 
fession, whose zeal and fearless disinterestedness in ministering to the suffer- 
ings of their fellow-creatures fell within my own observation. Dr. J. W. 
Francis and the Rev. Dr. Berrien, neither of whom ever hesitated, whatever 
the locality, to attend, when summoned to the bedside of the sick and dying. 
Laurens street, near Canal, then the abode of as much wretchedness, destitu- 
tion, filth and pestilence as could well be heaped together, was the special 
scene of the Rev. Dr. Berrien's ministration. Dr. Francis was every where, 
where need and danger were greatest. 



74 

spirit which triumphed over the loss of miUions of property 
— a total destruction of acres of inhabited houses and richly 
filled stores? Who does not recall, with some glow of en- 
thusiastic thankfulness that he too is a New-Yorker, when 
he looks back upon that scene of desolation, the work of 
one disastrous night, and remembers that while the embers 
were yet glowing, the contriving head had planned, and 
the daring hand had begun to execute, new and more sub- 
stantial structures, a much improved arrangement and dis- 
position of the streets — permitted by the extent over which 
the flames had swept — at comparatively moderate cost ? 

The Merchants' Exchange, severe in its simple gran- 
deur and massive proportions, is one of the noblest monu- 
ments of the spirit of that day — replacing as it does, upon a 
much more magnificent scale, the Exchange destroyed by 
that fire. 

The Mexican war — next to be enumerated among our 
calamities — for war is always a calamity — gave no check 
to our City, while one of its fruits, the acquisition of Califor- 
nia, is now daily adding to our wealth ; not without some 
drawback in the lives which that acquisition cost, and in 
the commercial losses, not few nor light, in its overdone 
market. What the Future may have in store for us of loss 
or disaster, it is happily not given to mortal eye to discern. 
But the Past is our warrant, that come what may, while 
true to ourselves, we cannot be shaken from our pride of 
place, nor cease to be the metropolis of the Western world. 

Let us gather up, if possible, and state in as brief form 
as can be arranged, the more striking results of the fifty 
years elapsed. 

I. At its outset New- York numbered some 61,000 peo- 
ple ; it now numbers 515,394, without including what pro- 
perly are its suburbs ; Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, Jersey 
City and Hoboken. Brooklyn especially is such— for the 
whole number of inhabitants in Brooklyn in 1800 was 
3,298. There are now in Brooklyn 96,850, and this growth, it 
must be perceived at a glance, is due mainly to New-York. 



75 

II. The exports from this City in 1800 were of the value 
of about nineteen millions of dollars. Those for the year 
1850, of the value of fifty-three millions. The imports for 
the same year, at this port, reached the enormous value of 
a hundred and eleven millions of dollars. 

III. The number of licensed cartmen is a good indica- 
tion of the active business in the city. For 1801 there wefb 
1,000; there are now 3,265. There are, moreover, 935 
other cartmen, whose special business, under the name of 
dirt cartmen, it is to transfer the high to the low grounds, 
to fill in wharves, make new streets, (fee. Omnibuses, un- 
known in the earlier day, but rendered necessary by the 
stretching out of the city on one narrow line, now run in 
various directions to the number of 589, performing the dis- 
tance of three miles each trip, many of them, for the mode- 
rate price of six cents. 

IV. Of Churches and other places of worship, there were, 
in 1801, thirty-two where now there are two hundred and 
sixty. 

V. Of Public Schools— that is, open to all and at the 
public expense — there were none then ; now there are some 
250, educating annually some 80,000 pupils. 

While enumerating other agencies whereby the welfare 
and growth of New- York has been advanced, I may not, 
for special reasons, omit the marvellous agency of the print- 
ing press, of which the powers are now, thanks to the inge- 
nuity and skill of our New- York mechanics, and especially 
of R. Hoe & Co., muhiplied almost an hundred fold. 

Up to the year 1825, the iron hand-press was in general 
use in newspaper offices — and it is of such only that I can 
speak with knowledge. The ordinary product of this 
press was 250 impressions an hour, with the aid of the 
pressman and a boy to ink the types ; with the aid of a 
third person, to "fly" the sheets, by great exertion, and for 
a short time, double that number of impressions could be 
obtained. But, in order to issue the newspaper, the process 



76 

was to be repeated, as one side only was printed at a time. 
In the year 1825, being then the editor of the New- Yorh 
American, I imported, together with Messrs. Dvvight, Town- 
send and Walker, the then editors of the Daily Advertiser, 
the first single cylinder or Napier press ever seen in this 
country. Mr. Walker, of the Daily Advertiser, went to 
Europe in person to make the purchase, and see the press 
in operation ; but, with all the advantage of his visit, it 
would have puzzled us much to put it up and in operation 
here, but for the ingenuity of Mr. Hoe, who at once put 
every thing to rights. The press was worked by hand, for 
the application of steam came later. It served to print 
the Daily Advertiser, which was a morning paper, and the 
American, which was an evening paper, and its ordinary 
product was about 1,000 impressions the hour. 

Messrs. Hoe &, Co. were not long in surpassing the im- 
ported press ; and, in 1830, -made one, also of a single cylin- 
der, for the Coinmercial Advertiser, which could throw off 
from 1200 to 1500 impressions in the hour. 

Once launched in the career of progress, our American 
go-aheadcdness soon accelerated the pace, and the patent 
improved Double Cylinder Press, which could turn out 
5000 impressions an hour, was produced. 

But the demand was still for more rapid work ; a de- 
mand, it may be remarked, occasioned in part by the very 
success thus far achieved, and which stimulated by the 
greatly diminished price, and greatly increased circulation 
of the penny papers, absolutely required more rapidity in 
striking off the sheets. 

Then came, from the same ingenious mechanics. Hoe 6c 
Co., the ne plus idtra of printing presses, as one might 
almost be tempted to call it, if we had not already seen 
such maivellous improvements — the Type Revolving Ma- 
chine, as the new fast press is called. 

The capabilities of this press seem only limited by the 
power of those who feed it, as is the technical expression, 
with paper. 



77 

On one large horizontal cylinder the types— or form- 
is secured, and as it revolves, the forni of types, freshly 
inked each time, is carried to four, six, or eight horizon- 
tal impression-cylinders, between which and the large 
cylinder passes the blank sheet of paper to receive the im- 
pression ; and of these 20,000 can be made in an hour by 
an eight-cylinder fast press ! at a cost, including steam- 
power, not exceeding $2 ! The first cost of such a press is 
twenty thousand dollars. 

But none of these presses are adapted to printing both 
sides of the paper at once, and the press-work consequently 
has to be done twice for every newspaper. 

But tliis, too, has been overcome, at least for the print- 
ing of books, by Messrs. Hoc & Co., who, as I am mformed, 
have just completed a press adapted to type or to stereotype, 
Avith two cylinders, a form on each, which perfects the 
sheet at one operation. It is made to register accurately, 
and, to use the words of the ingenious inventors, "is to be 
used exclusively to print school-books for the million." 

It is most gratifying to know that not only the inven- 
tion of these wonder-working presses is American, and of 
New-York, but that all the materials of which they are 
made, saving some small quantity of cast-steel imported 
from England, are American too. 

Messrs. Hoe & Co. employ some 350 hands in their fac- 
tories, and pay them an average weekly amount in wages 
of tJiree thousand dollars. 

There are many other topics that laid in my way, and 
concerning which I would gladly speak. The progress in 
machinery and in machine-shops and foundries, is espe- 
cially noteworthy, and the progress and improvements in 
ship-building; but I must pass them by. 

But there is one establishment now about to be opened 
to the public use, of which I mast say a word or two — the 
Astor Library. The origin of that you ail know. It is the 
noble creation of a man whose own vigorous mind and ener- 



78 

getic character, unaided by much early education, made for 
him a name and a place among men which the loftiest 
might envy. Dying, and in order to insure to others ad- 
vantages he himself had lacked, he bequeathed $400,000 
for a public library, where all men, of every degree, pursuit, 
and calling, might seek knowledge, and get understanding. 
The building is no\v finished, and as soon as its walls are 
sufficiently dry. the books, already numbering more than 
60,000, and to which accessions are making, and to be made 
continually, will be placed in it, and it will then be open 
for the use of all. By a most fortunate coincidence, and 
through the exercise of that rare sagacity which Mr. Astor 
possessed of finding the right mail for the thing in hand, 
the librarian chosen by him before his death, Mr. Jos. G. 
Cogswell, is exactly the man, possibly the only man in the 
United States for the place. His heart is in the work, and 
to great zeal and uncommon literary and scholastic attain- 
ments, he adds a knowledge of books in all languages and 
in all departments unequalled, it maybe said undoubtingly, 
by any other man in the United States. He is, besides, as 
methodical, exact, and cautious as the most strait-laced 
business man ; and it is not too much to say, that, in his 
hands, and by his skill, economy, and knowing how to bide 
his time in purchases, he has more than doubled the value 
of the original bequest. This will not be deemed extrava- 
gant when I add, that the cost of the 60,000 vohunes already 
purchased, comprising the choicest selection of books, in all 
languages, many of them most magnificent in plates and 
binding, will not average more than one and a quarter dol- 
lar per volume. The books in the Congress Library, just 
burned, averaged above $4 a volume, and those in your 
Demilt Library will average, as I am informed, nearly $5. 
The Astor Library, for the people, is one of the proudest 
trophies of which New- York can boast in the half century 
just closed. 

But it is time to bring this retrospect to a close — a retro- 



79 

spect which, however full of interest in facts, cannot have 
been other than wearisome in the detail. Its moral re- 
mains to be applied. 

We have seen in the half century just ended, how 
great the progress of New- York, keeping pace therein only 
with the progress of our country. Shall the close of the 
half century of which the first year is now about expiring, 
witness to our descendants and to all future time, that the 
efforts and the toils, the trials and the triumphs which pre- 
faced and ushered it in, were wisely appreciated by its 
children ? Shall the close of the year 1900 find this City 
as far ahead of us in wealth and power, in the means of 
education and the means of comfort, in the enterprise that 
advances and the arts that adorn civilization, as this pres- 
ent period is ahead of that fifty years ago ? These are 
questions which nearly concern us, for we in part, and those 
whom we are to train and influence, must answer them. 

I have faith in that future, because I have confidence 
in the present. With our growth in wealth and in power, 
I see no abatement m those qualities, moral and physical, 
to which so much of our success is owing; and while thus 
true to ourselves, true to the instincts of freedom and to 
those other instincts which with our race seem to go hand 
in hand with Freedom — love of order and respect for law 
(as law, and not because it is upheld by force) — we must 
continue to prosper. 

The sun shines not upon, has never shone upon, a land 
where human happiness is so widely disseminated, where 
human government is so little abused, so free from oppres- 
sion, so invisible, so intangible, and yet so strong. No- 
where else do the institutions which constitute a State, rest 
upon so broad a base as here, and nowhere are men so 
powerless and institutions so strong. In its wilderness of 
free minds dissensions will occur, and in the unlimited dis- 
cussion in writing and in speech, in town-meetings, news- 
papers, and legislative bodies, angry and menacing Ian- 



80 

guage will be used ; irritations will arise and be aggravated 
— and those immediately concerned in the strife, or breath- 
ing its atmosphere, may fear, or feign to fear, that danger is 
in such hot breath and passionate resolves. But outside, 
and above, and beyond all this is the People — steady, in- 
dustrious, self-poised — caring little for abstractions and less 
for abstractionists, but with one deep common sentiment, 
and with the consciousness, calm, but quite sure and earn- 
est, that in the Constitution and the Union, as they received 
them from their fathers, and as they themselves have ob- 
served and maintained them, is the sheet-anchor of their 
hope, the pledge of their prosperity, the palladium of their 
liberty; and with this is that other consciousness, not less 
calm and not less earnest, that, in their own keeping exclu- 
sively, and not in that of any party leaders, or party dema- 
gogues, or political hacks, or speculators, is the integrity of 
that Union and that Constitution. It is in the strong arms 
and honest hearts of the great masses, who are not mem- 
bers of Congress, nor holders of office, nor spouters at town 
meetings, that resides the safety of the State ; and these 
masses, though slow to move, are irresistible when the 
time and the occasion for moving come. 

I have faith, therefore, in the Future ; and when, at the 
close of this half-century, which so comparatively few of 
us are to see, the account shall again be taken, and the 
question be asked. What has New- York done since 1850? 
I have faith that the answer will be given in a City still 
advancing in population, wealth, morals and knowledge — 
in a City free, and deserving, by her virtues, her benevolent 
institutions, her schools, her courts and her temples, to con- 
tinue free, and still part and parcel of this great and glori- 
ous Union — which may God preserve till Time shall be no 
more ! 









PHOGRESS 




CITY OF NEW-YORK, 

During ttie ICiifit jFiftij fratH; 



NOTICES OF THE PRINCIPAL CHANGES 
AND IMPORTANT EVENTS. 



A LECTURE 

DELIVERED BEFOKE THE MECHANICS' SOCIETY AT MECHANICS' 
HALL, BROADWAY, 

ON 29Tn DECEMBER, 1851. 



CHARLES KING, L.L. D., 

PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 



NEW-YORK: ' If 

D. APPLE TON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. ' 

1852. 











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